Barbara Delinsky has written a moderately good novel and an excellent investigative report of the sometimes illegal methods used by some journalists to secure information about individuals they wish to feature in tabloid type, headline-grabbing news exposes.
She shows how such a reporter can devastate an individual’s life: a rather naive Lily Blake is forced to give up her teaching and singing and Boston apartment and retreat to a family lake cottage to avoid the press after a seemingly innocent conversation is illegally taped and re-edited to sound as though she has been having an affair with a recently appointed Cardinal of the Catholic Church.
The ease with which any individual’s past can be researched on the web is frightening. Residences, schools, church affiliations, licenses, misdemeanors all can be mined for landlords, teachers, pastors, officials who can be called on for statements, which can then be used to support whatever story is being concocted.
Our political candidates are obviously subjected to this kind of data-mining and misuse. But so are the rest of us. It is worth reading this book to become aware of how dirty journalism works.