Absence of Malice is a story of one man’s search for the meaning behind false information published about him in the local newspaper and a reporter’s search for truth about this information. Meghan Carter works for a paper in Miami that publishes a front-page story revealing Michael Gallagher to be the target of an ongoing murder investigation. Meghan is determined to get some real information about this scandal, so she goes straight to the best source, Michael Gallagher, despite people’s warnings that he is a dangerous man. Gallagher denies the truth of the story, but won’t give Meghan much helpful information. However, he doesn’t seem too worried about the false claims.
Throughout her search for the bottom of the story, Meghan is torn between making the complete truth public, agreeing to the privacy requested by those she interviews, and looking out for her own personal safety. A romantic interest that develops between Meghan and Gallagher adds another dimension to the story that entangles Meghan’s emotions with the politics of the newspaper. One of Gallagher’s close, mentally unstable friends who Meghan interviews ends up committing suicide when she sees her name and everything she disclosed to Meghan published in the paper. Meghan endures physical and verbal abuse at Gallagher’s hands for her publication. Their romantic involvement continues to develop even after this, though, and in the end it is finally discovered that a prosecutor in the murder case purposefully leaked the false information about Gallagher. He set Meghan up to discover this information so that she would publish it, encouraging Gallagher to give in and tell them some helpful information about the murder. Meghan was ultimately protected by the Absence of Malice rule in slander and libel cases and was therefore not prosecuted for publishing false information. She learned a lot of lessons about the potential harsh consequences of doing her job faithfully.
10 things I learned from the film that could help me become a better journalist…
1. Those that are interviewed by newspapers are real people with real emotions – discretion should be used in regard to how much of what they disclosed should be published.
2. If an absence of malice can’t be proved, false information published against someone is punishable as slander or libel.
3. It’s important to get enough background information on someone before deciding it’s safe enough to go off to interview them alone.
4. Even professional, official sources (prosecutor of the murder case in the movie) cannot and should not always be trusted.
5. Reporters should be committed to reporting the truth, but sometimes some information should not be published in order to protect someone’s reputation/identity or avoid destructive consequences.
6. Reporters need to be very clear with those being interviewed or testifying about the fact that they must consent or refuse to release their statements and name for publication.
7. Reporters need to be aware that their stories could put themselves in great potential danger and act accordingly, like not giving out personal information or publishing everything.
8. Getting emotionally involved with the targets of your reporting makes it hard to be objective when writing stories and also puts you in more danger of harsh consequences for your what you publish.
9. Papers have a great deal of freedom from the government in deciding what to print – it’s up to the integrity of the papers and reporters.
10. It’s important to be persistent in talking to witnesses or those involved in different parts of the story if you really want to get to the truth at the bottom.
