Voting Station

Joe McGinniss

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Author

The Resume

    (December 9, 1942-March 10, 2014)
    Born in New York City, New York
    Wrote 'The Selling of the President 1968' (1969), 'Going To Extremes' (1980), 'Fatal Vision' (1983), 'Blind Faith' (1989), 'Cruel Doubt' (1991), 'The Last Brother: The Rise and Fall of Teddy Kennedy' (1993) and 'The Rogue: Searching for the Real Sarah Palin' (2011)

Why he might be annoying:

    After the publication of 'Fatal Vision,' he was sued by his subject, convicted murderer Jeffrey MacDonald, who claimed that McGinniss pretended to believe that MacDonald was innocent well after being convinced of his guilt in order to keep MacDonald cooperating with him.
    The case resulted in a hung jury (5-1 in MacDonald's favor), after which McGinniss' publisher settled out of court for $325,000.
    In 'Fatal Vision,' he suggested that MacDonald had killed his family during a psychotic episode brought on by abuse of diet pills, but he admitted under oath that he had no evidence to support his theory.
    Journalist Janet Malcolm described him as a classic case of a reporter as 'a kind of confidence man, preying on people’s vanity, ignorance, or loneliness, gaining their trust and betraying them without remorse.'
    'The Last Brother' was panned for attributing dialogue and thoughts to Kennedy that were invented by McGinniss.
    Washington Post book critic Jonathan Yardley called 'The Last Brother' the worst book he reviewed in nearly three decades on the job.
    While writing 'Rogue,' he rented a house next door to Sarah Palin's, leading to accusations that he was spying on her.
    He said he did not believe the rumors that Sarah's son Trig is really Bristol Palin's child, but that did not stop him from hinting at it in 'Rogue.'

Why he might not be annoying:

    'The Selling of the President 1968' was called 'a classic of political journalism.'
    Between 'The Last Brother' and 'Rogue,' he at least was a bipartisan hatchet man.
    He sat through the O.J. trial with plans to write a book, but returned the $1 million advance, saying the trial was 'a farce from start to finish.'

Credit: C. Fishel


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    In 2023, Out of 4 Votes: 75.00% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 13 Votes: 84.62% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 86 Votes: 53.49% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 3 Votes: 33.33% Annoying
    In 2019, Out of 4 Votes: 75.00% Annoying
    In 2018, Out of 8 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2017, Out of 19 Votes: 84.21% Annoying
    In 2016, Out of 13 Votes: 84.62% Annoying
    In 2015, Out of 16 Votes: 56.25% Annoying
    In 2014, Out of 254 Votes: 47.24% Annoying