The New Yorker Examines a Local Murder Trial

By Joel Meares

Every couple of issues, The New Yorker seems to produce a piece that gets the “magasphere” (hey, I tried) buzzing. In their May 3 issue, it was a piece by Janet Malcolm about the trial of Queens mother and immigrant Mazoltuv Borukhova, accused of arranging for her ex-husband to be murdered. I’m still working on it — it stretches from page 34 to 63 of the magazine and we’ve been busy closing the magazine — but am completely enthralled by the twists of this trial, and the unsympathetic character at the center of it. One of the most interesting aspects for those in the industry is Malcolm’s take on other journalists covering the trial — David Carr looked at this on Media Decoder — and the fact that she steps into the trial herself after interviewing one source, who had testified at the trial, whose views she found might suggest mental instability. Cue ethical debate…