Is he or isn't he?

We just watched most of a doco on Dominick Dunne. I do not think I had heard of him until a few weeks ago but he seems to have appeared in almost every paper recently and on the radio and then tonight on Aunty. Perhaps all of the publicity was just leading up to tonight's screening.

It was an interesting insight into a man who had lived what seemed many lives. Soldier, film producer, journalist and plenty of other things in between.

My main point of interest was in his role as journalist, as I think that term causes a degree of angst when it is applied to those that are perceived to have not had a standard career in the industry. Dunne's only journalistic endeavours regard the reportage of famous court cases. He has never trained as a journalist. The purists would suggest that he cannot hold the that title. I find it difficult to pin down my own opinion.

There is so much about Dunne that makes me think of Capote, especially his role in the writer v journalist argument. In Cold Blood is a fantastic examination of a crime and the subsequent trials but does it answer the code of ethics questions that need to be asked? Was it fair and balanced? Did Capote cross numerous ethical lines in order to tell a story and was it the real story or just one that suited his own needs? Dunne is often accused of bias in favour of the victims of crime due to the murder of his own daughter. Does he think he needs to apply the fair and balanced questions to his own work? I wonder whether there is a certain closed shop mentality that happens within the journalistic community. A belief in paying your dues. Perhaps it is jealousy that Dunne seemed to appear from nowhere to become a headliner at Vanity Fair?

I can see both points of view. I often wonder when some of Helen Garner's work is referred to as journalism. Is she bound by a journalistic code of ethics?

Ultimately we need to assume that each individual is bound by their own code of ethics. We must assess each piece for its own journalistic merits despite the training or professional association of the writer and accept good writing to be just that.