Through an article, a journalist enters a disturbed world...

I was incredibly intrigued to find an article in New York Magazine about Kurt Eichenwald, the New York Times business journalist who published a sensational front-page New York Times article in 2005 on his efforts to save Justin Berry, a victim of a manipulative and abusive shadowy industry of online, underage sex. In "Saving Justin Berry," David France checks in on the reporter two years later to find a broken man--out of work, unable to leave his house, emotional, convinced that the people he helped save Berry from are out to get him. It's as fascinating and as disturbing as the original article, as France discusses the fall-out from the piece, the attacks Eichenwald faced from other journalists and from pornographers and child molesters caught up in the investigations the piece launched.

I remember at the time that one of the most interesting aspects of the case for me anyway revolved around how Justin Berry broke down the traditional, confining categories of victim and abuser. At least in the beginning, Berry was miles away, and isolated, from his abusers--the men who bought him things off his Amazon wish list for a wank or a flash of flesh--and yet the psychological link was there. In the end, Berry was vigorously complicit in his own abuse, involved in the day-to-day operations of porn sites he and others starred in that brought in thousands and thousands of dollars.

In the original article and in this follow-up piece, Eichenwald portrays himself as the crusading journalist unable to sit idly by while a young boy is molested. But France's investigations question just how involved Eichenwald was, sending thousands of dollars to Berry (who thought, at one point, that the journalist was Don Henley), posing as Berry in IM chats, perhaps even involved in the operations of the porn sites himself. It's worth a read.