Libel Suit Figure to Teach News Class : Journalism: Some UC Berkeley students question hiring of Jeffrey Masson for ethics sessions. He lost case against New Yorker writer.

For 10 years, Freud scholar Jeffrey Masson waged a futile legal battle to persuade jurors that magazine writer Janet Malcolm violated journalistic ethics in a controversial profile she wrote about him.

A federal court jury disagreed and exonerated Malcolm last month. But next spring, Masson will get another chance to argue journalism ethics--from the front of a classroom at UC Berkeley.

In an appointment that has stirred protests among journalism school students, Masson has been asked by Tom Goldstein, dean of the graduate school of journalism, to conduct a five-week portion of Goldstein’s 15-week course on “Ethical Issues in Journalism.”

The controversy--which pits notions of academic freedom against questions of professional qualifications--comes on the 30th anniversary of the Free Speech Movement’s inception, which has drawn visitors from all over the country to the school to commemorate the protest that earned students the right to debate political controversies on campus.

Journalism students are challenging Masson’s standing as a journalist and his qualifications as an ethics instructor.

“He hasn’t worked in daily journalism,” said second-year student Ann Lopez. “Since he hasn’t been out there facing the deadline pressure--making quick ethical decisions when reporting--I don’t think he should play a major role in this class.”

Sandra Madison, a second-year student, said she is trying to organize a boycott of the elective course to protest the appointment. “If (Masson) felt he was libeled, he did the right thing to sue,” Madison said. “It doesn’t mean he has to teach here.”

But Goldstein has defended the hiring of Masson in meetings with students and letters to the faculty. Masson will conduct the portions of the class that deal with issues of privacy in profiles and biographies. He will be paid $1,500 for eight lectures.

“He hasn’t worked in a newsroom, but as the author of half a dozen nonfiction books in the last decade, he is certainly a journalist in the broadest and best sense,” Goldstein said.

Goldstein said Masson, as a scholar and biographer--as well as the focus of intense media scrutiny--has considered the same issues confronting the class.

Masson has a Ph.D. in Sanskrit from Harvard University and taught a course called “Media Harms” at the University of Michigan last year.

But he is best known for his protracted legal battle with New Yorker writer Janet Malcolm over whether she libeled him by using quotes out of context and fabricating incidents in a profile she wrote after he was dismissed from a prestigious job as curator of the Freud Archives in London because of his renegade views about Sigmund Freud.

Malcolm argued that she never intentionally misquoted Masson, and a jury found acceptable her practice of stringing together quotations from different times and places without indicating their context.

Goldstein is a friend of Masson, and at the time of the verdict called Malcolm’s compression of quotations into a single monologue “regrettable” because it goes “against what I consider to be good journalism.”

But Goldstein said last week that he disagrees with Masson “on some fundamentals. I do not think he should have brought his case and have told him that for five years. But in his lawsuit . . . he is not the one who admitted to compressing quotations, which I think violates fundamental norms of journalism.”

Masson has yet to arrive on campus, but said in a telephone interview that he is baffled by the strong reaction his appointment has generated. “I don’t understand the controversy,” he said. “Do they think I will poison the atmosphere or twist their minds?”

The syllabus for Masson’s section of the course asks students to compare and contrast the biographies of several public figures--including Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Edward Kennedy, Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton--to determine how writers treat the intimate details of a subject’s life.

Masson said he hopes the class will define what constitutes a fair and accurate portrayal of a person--the issue at the heart of his legal battle with Malcolm. Her 48,500-word magazine article used details of Masson’s sexual exploits to portray him as an egomaniac obsessed with sex.

Masson said he plans to address in the course what he sees as a trend in news to illuminate the sensational details of someone’s life without making a larger point.

“We will look at what does it take to know someone, how deep do you have to go, what does it mean to be fair,” Masson said.

Although faculty members agree that Masson’s presence will spark discussion, some professors worry that the appointment may suggest that the school has taken a side in the Masson-Malcolm case.

“It raises the appearance of impropriety--as if we were in some way giving a stamp of approval to his quarrel with Janet Malcolm and the New Yorker,” cultural reporting professor David Littlejohn told the San Francisco Chronicle.

Susan Rasky, acting associate professor and former New York Times reporter, said she is also concerned about the school’s reputation and worried that the choice of Masson “may open the school up to ridicule.”

But, Rasky said, “in the end . . . it comes down to academic freedom. I am not prepared to go to the wall and jeopardize that.”

In spite of--or perhaps because of--the disagreement over Masson’s involvement in the course, many other students said they welcome his arrival.

“A lot of what goes on in ethics classes normally is just empty rhetoric,” said Charlie Le Duff, a second-year student. “People say, ‘I wouldn’t write about O.J.’ But sure they would. They need to face the reality of the downside of it all and Masson embodies that. I don’t think we should be afraid of what he has to say.”

Another student said the journalism school should invite more people who challenge media practices.

“I think it’s important to hear from people who feel they’ve been wronged by the press,” said Lisa Weaver. “Once you get into the job market, there will be pressure to beat the competition. This is the place to hear different views.”