Talk:Fatal Vision controversy

Where to even begin?

Oh well, let me try.

1st, should anyone who doesn't even understand the concept of paragraphs be considered a credible writer?

2nd, this is not even close to an objective review of either the book or the TV mini-series. Rather this individual is on an agenda to push one view of the events of the MacDonald murders at Ft Bragg.

3rd, there are obvious factual errrors in this review. For example, the claim that McGinniss treats the amphetamine theory as fact in the book. All McGinniss does is offer it as a theory for motive. There were no revelations about this theory during the lawsuit over the book.

I will try to make more time to come back and clean up this review a little.

It's shameful that someone would abuse this Free Encylopedia format the way the author of this entry has done. 05:25, 30 December 2005 24.17.204.233

• I completely agree. I have pretty much rewritten the whole thing, trying to stick to the basics and keeping things on an NPOV. Hope I don't get reverted back to POV. Madman 05:44, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

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BetacommandBot (talk) 20:07, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Lead sent

   The article title "Fatal Vision" invites the current lead

Fatal Vision is a best-selling true crime book ....

but that misleads as to the scope of the article. The description of that book appears almost entirely in the following sentence

Fatal Vision, told in a narrative format that interpolates case events with transcripts of recordings MacDonald sent McGinniss, becomes an investigation and the investigation steadily builds a case against MacDonald.

The rest of the article is better described as about the direct spin-off works and the criticism of McGinniss's authorial ethics.
   I am boldly moving Fatal Vision to Fatal Vision controversy (keeping the current title a Rdr to the new title), and rewriting the lead acccordingly. I'll merge the content of the section Jeffrey_MacDonald#Fatal_Vision with this article, and replace that section with a short 'graph linking it here, since duplication of content interferes with effective updating.
   There is also material here (near the end of the "History" subsection)that is not about the books & miniseries, and probably deserves no mention at all in the article accompanying this talk page (but on the def'dnt's article).
--Jerzy•t 02:20, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Removed material

I discarded for now

"journalistic distortion."

which may be either an established legal term of art or an unorthodox theory of MacD's lawyers; if it is to be useful, more clarity about its definition and legal status is needed.

I reworded

In 1990, The New Yorker writer Janet Malcolm published a widely read article, "The Journalist and the Murderer", the thesis of which was that McGinniss committed a "morally indefensible" act in pretending that he believed MacDonald was innocent, even after he became convinced of his guilt.

bcz it made her out as singling him out as an immoral journalist, whereas i read our coverage of her as saying that journalism is by nature "morally indefensible", and that examination of his actions serves especially well the inherent conflict, rather than being "about him".

I removed

==Cultural references==

Seinfeld's Elaine Benes is seen reading a copy of Fatal Vision in the episode entitled "The Diplomat's Club", giving the mistaken impression that she is interested in killing her boss Mr. Pitt.

bcz our article on the episode (for which is tagged as having too much detail already!) does not mention the book let alone who sees her reading and gets the mistaken impression (nor, actually, whether one sees it, mentions it casually, and another gets the mistaken impression).
Mebbe there's a place for it, but i've seen no evidence that it's worth making a new place for it to sit (say an article on the book itself rather than the book as one piece in the mosaic of attitudes and beliefs about the Fatal Vision guy). In fact, is it a cultural reference to the book or to McD? Sounds like Pitt took it not so much as an interest in the book as an interest in how murder is done.

I left the History section (now 2 'graphs) for the moment; IMO nearly all its content either duplicates, or belongs in, Jeffrey R. MacDonald.
--Jerzy•t 11:39, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Fatal Vision controversy or MacDonald controversy?

The title and the text of this article do not match. Fatal Vision is the title of a book by J. McGinniss, so the controversy of the title should be taken to refer to the legal case made against McGinniss, and the critisism by Janet Malcolm in "The Journalist and the murder". These events, however, are not even mentioned in the intro to this article, and also in the rest of this article the main subject is the case against MacDonald, not McGinniss. Animus00 (talk) 21:40, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

• I am in agreement. Material focused on the MacDonald murders themselves belongs elsewhere. Will remove material that is extraneous to the discussion of this book and the controversy it generated. ronningt (talk) 19:10, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

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