Informed Consent and the Use of Pseudonyms

By Kate Newman

Kate Newman

In his April 2008 article for The New Yorker, "Vengeance is Ours: What can tribal societies tell us about our need to get even?", Jared Diamond describes violent blood feuds between local groups in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea. The central figure in the story is Daniel Wemp, a member of the Handa clan, who sought to avenge the death of his uncle. Diamond uses Wemp's quest for retribution and the bloodshed that ensues - an alleged six battles resulting in about 30 deaths and the theft of 300 pigs - to examine the role of vengeance in contemporary Western society.

The author also shares a personal example: his late father-in-law, a Polish Jew, had the chance to take revenge on the leader of an armed gang responsible for the murder of his mother, sister, and niece, but instead turned the offender in to police, and lived to regret it. Diamond reflects on vengeance as a powerful and universal human emotion, and considers these different approaches; in Papua New Guinea, it is sought out directly, in Poland, left to the State.

Daniel Wemp was deeply displeased with the portrayal of his character in the article; he and another highlander are now suing the publisher of The New Yorker for $10 million. The men claim defamation, saying that Diamond portrayed them inaccurately as criminals. While The New Yorker stands by the story, the lawsuit has drawn attention from journalists and anthropologists worldwide. Rhonda Roland Shearer, a researcher for the media ethics project StinkyJournalism.org, conducted an extensive study of Diamond's findings. Known for using the scientific method in her work, Shearer employed a team of researchers in Papua New Guinea to meticulously fact check the article. They discovered many inconsistencies, and Shearer published their findings in a report entitled "Jared Diamond's Factual Collapse."

"Vengeance is Ours" serves as a powerful reminder of the weighty responsibility carried by writers depicting human subjects. Diamond, a respected scholar and winner of the Pulitzer Prize and MacArthur "genius" grant, is known primarily as a geographer and biologist, not as an anthropologist or journalist. Critics say he lacks the ethical approach of a more seasoned reporter when writing about people. As Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban writes, "researchers working with flora and fauna do not obtain the informed consent of their subjects, and the subjects do not read and critique the writing of the scholar." She points out that Daniel Wemp is a "literate, informed, and connected injured party, not an ethnographic object or factoid."

Perhaps Diamond thought of his subjects as removed from his reality, inhabitants of a different world. Andrew Mack, a biologist who lived in Papua New Guinea for 20 years, acknowledges this tendency. As Mack writes on the StinkyJournalism.org blog, "it took me years of contact with a wide cross-section of the PNG populace to really appreciate that, no, his world shares much with the world of The New Yorker." The information in the article may bring very real consequences to the life of Daniel Wemp, since it paints a stark picture that may affect how he is perceived.

Ethical journalists grapple with responsibility for their subjects, debating what to disclose, what to leave unstated. In this case, Diamond is criticized most severely for endangering his subject; by accusing Wemp of murder, then stating his real first and last name, Diamond puts him in jeopardy. Anthropologists and journalists alike claim that a more collaborative approach - including informed consent and the use of pseudonyms - would have been beneficial to all parties. But then would his work need to be considered fiction, and not journalism? There is value but also danger in using another culture to better understand one's own, as Diamond does in the contested article. His work has raised strong ethical concerns and remains a cautionary tale to the journalistic world.