Author Archives: mm132250

In the 1981 film, Absence of Malice, Meghan Carter, one of the main characters makes a number of mistakes that, may show an absence of malice, but point to a presence of irresponsibility.

Ms. Carter, who is a reporter for the Miami Standard, is caught between a demanding editor and Michael Gallagher, a man who she connected to a murder in a story.  Throughout the film, Ms. Carter makes a number of errors that bring her professional credentials as a journalist into question and point to a pattern of irresponsibility.

Firstly, Ms. Carter does not inform Mr. Gallagher that she is about to publish a damaging story about him.  Journalists should always alert people before they are going to print damaging information because it gives the suspected party a chance to defend himself on the record and to correct any mistakes in the reporter’s story.  Ms. Carter leaves a phone message on Mr. Gallagher’s answering machine, but this does not satisfy her responsibility to inform him of what is about to hit him in the Miami Standard.  She prints the story to appease her desk editor, which naturally raises the ire of Mr. Gallagher when he encounters the story.

The next mistake that Ms. Carter makes is secretly recording Mr. Gallagher when they are  on his boat for lunch.  A responsible journalist should always alert a subject that he is being recorded prior to “hitting play.”  Ultimately it matters little because Mr. Gallagher discovers the hidden recorder in Ms. Carter’s jacket pocket when he suspects that she is hiding something because she refuses to remove her jacket, despite the warm afternoon temperatures.

Ms. Carter actually drives Theresa Parrone to suicide when she publishes the fact that the woman had an abortion in Atlanta.  Ms. Parrone makes the confession to Ms. Carter to provide proof that Mr. Gallagher was not in Florida during the time of the murder.  Ms. Carter’s indiscretion leads Ms. Parrone, who came from a conservative Roman Catholic family, to commit suicide out of social shame.  To make matters worse, Ms. Carter tells Ms. Parrone that no one would care if she had an abortion  showing a complete ignorance for the social implications of such an action, especially with Roman Catholic friends and family.

Ms. Carter shows more poor decision making when she decides to sleep with Mr. Gallagher.  What people choose to do in their private lives is up to them, but this is still very unprofessional.  In fact, their relationship leads Ms. Carter to give-up Elliot Rosen as her source for the story.  Of course, a journalist should never reveal her sources.

Ms. Carter makes plenty of mistakes throughout the film and is a good case study of what not to do as a journalist.

-Logan

I saw The Central Park Five at the Lincoln Plaza theater on Saturday afternoon and I was very moved by this heartbreaking film.  There are certain aspects about how the neighborhoods of New York City have formed, and shifted through time, that have always puzzled me and this film brought out the social, economic, and geographic implications of the city.

I have never been comfortable with Carnegie Hill, neither the physical form itself, nor the idea of the hill.  Carnegie Hill is a slope that separates the Upper East Side from the southern reaches of Harlem; it runs approximately from Central Park to the East River, along 96th Street.  But Carnegie Hill is more than just a physical form; it is a social and emotional barrier that separates two worlds: the plushness of the Upper East Side with its doormen buildings, elite private schools, and boutique shops rest atop the hill, while East Harlem, with its public housing projects, failing public schools, and aging bodegas sit at the bottom.  In short, the Upper East Side embodies an urbane vision of the American dream while the lowlands are more reminiscent of an American nightmare that those atop the hill would rather forget.

But what about Central Park?  In the film, Ed Koch refers to the park as a sort of, “sacred” space.  This common space, a monument to democracy and open to all, exists as a sort of third position between the excesses of the Upper East Side and the desperation of East Harlem.  No individual and no group may exert control over Central Park.  And it is here where two worlds collided during the events that unfolded in 1988.  When the jogger, a resident of the highlands, was raped that night, the police had no evidence linking the five Harlem residents to the crime; however, it seems that their prejudices immediately lead them to the assumption that the crime must have been committed by “others.”  I believe that the geographic segregation of New York City lends itself well to this sort of racism/classism because it reinforces the idea that we, as Americans, are not a single people, but rather a loosely-bound confederation of different peoples.  This sort of ignorance put five innocent men behind bars.

There’s a lot going on “between the lines” in this story.  At its heart, it shows a fragmented America fraught with distrust and disdain.  One victim is upper class and white; five victims are working class and minorities.  It seems nearly impossible in America to speak about race without speaking about economics, and vice versa.  Martin Luther King Jr. spoke passionately about social justice and one theory about the 1993 Los Angeles race riots is that they were fueled much more by working-class economic anguish than by genuine racial hatred.  All of these dynamics–geographic, racial, economic–have a place in explaining how such a great injustice could be brought against five innocent men in a “free” country.  But one thing is for sure: this story illuminated the gaps that exist between different groups of Americans and it challenges the notion that Americans are a unified people.

-Logan