Legendary New Yorker editor William Shawn, who died last year, was brought back to life in a federal courtroom Thursday as an actor read his deposition at the trial of a libel suit against the magazine and writer Janet Malcolm.
His testimony, which appeared to be critical of some of Malcolm’s journalistic methods in writing a New Yorker article, was taken in 1986.
It was read into the record by a professional actor hired by plaintiff Jeffrey Masson, a former psychoanalyst who alleges in his $10 million suit that four quotations attributed to him by Malcolm in a 1983 profile were fabricated and that a fifth was edited in such a way as to distort its meaning.
In his deposition, Shawn said the magazine had never had a single complaint about a misquotation during his 47 years there until Masson came along.
“We make errors in spite of our scrupulous checking,” he said. “But we do not misquote people.”
Shawn said he allowed writers to edit quotes for “coherence, for clarity, for syntax, for sense,” and to sometimes combine quotations or move them around for “literary reasons.”
“It must never be done to distort anything or deceive anyone,” he said.
Malcolm has testified that she “compressed” quotations by stitching together several different conversations in her two-part series.
Charles O. Morgan Jr., Masson’s attorney, asked Shawn to comment on a number of hypothetical situations dealing with editorial policy at the magazine. His answers at times seemed to contradict Malcolm’s earlier testimony.
For example, Malcolm and other witnesses for the New Yorker said it was the magazine’s policy never to read back quotes to those who were interviewed.
But Shawn stated in the deposition that if Malcolm thought she was changing the meaning of a quote through her editing she should have checked with Masson and asked, “Is that what you meant?”
Shawn also commented about an apparent discrepancy between the taped transcript and the text from the Malcolm article.
In reference to an academic paper Masson once gave in which he called psychoanalysis “sterile,” he is quoted as saying, “I don’t know why I put it in.”
That quote is not on the tapes nor in Malcolm’s notes, but she says she clearly remembers Masson saying it.
“If Masson has said it at another time it would be OK,” Shawn testified.
“But if he didn’t say it at all, which appears to be the case here, then I don’t think she should have put it in.”
In the unusual bit of courtroom drama, Shawn’s deposition was read by Stephen Bradley, a 58-year-old Bay Area actor who gained his courtroom experience with parts in the TV shows “Divorce Court” and “Superior Court.”
Bradley, seated on the witness stand, read Shawn’s testimony while Morgan, who took the deposition, read back his questions.
Gardner Botsford, Malcolm’s New Yorker editor and husband, and Nancy Franklin, a fact-checker at the magazine who completed her testimony earlier that morning, both said Bradley’s portrayal was not like their former editor.
“Mr. Shawn wasn’t quite so orotund,” said Botsford, referring to the actor’s booming voice.
James M. Wagstaffe, one of the attorneys for the New Yorker, said that depositions are generally read into the record by an attorney rather than an actor.
When asked if he was bothered by the dramatic rendering, he shrugged and said, “The words are the words.” Then, peering into a reporter’s notebook, he added, “Now, make sure you get that quote right.”
