“Shattered Glass” is the true story of a young journalist who turns to fabrication in order to succeed. Stephen Glass is a young writer for The New Republic who created false quotes, people, and even entire stories over the course of three years.
The movie brought attention to the ethical issues of journalism. Glass was not only dishonest with himself, but he also put the reputation of The New Republic on the line.
Stephen Glass dug himself into a deeper and deeper hole with his elaborate web of lies. When he saw all of the positive feedback he was getting for his articles, it became almost impossible for him to stop the fabrication. When questioned about his sources and facts, he went to extreme lengths to make sure they would seem legitimate. Glass forgot what it meant to be a journalist during his time at The New Republic. The job of a journalist is to report the news to the people in a factual and timely manner.
Some saw this problem as something much larger than Stephen Glass. The blame went to “a youth-happy journalism industry [that] catapults reporters into the big leagues before they have learned the fundamentals of their craft.” (Pooley, 1998, p. 62). The film even faced negative criticism from the New York Daily News, who thought that the film would “inevitably glamorize fraudulent journalism” (Matthews, 2002, p. 18). Nowadays, the journalism world is so competitive that in order to stand out from the crowd you need to be something spectacular.
It’s definitely hard to be a college student studying journalism. Almost everywhere you turn there is some poll coming out saying there are no jobs in journalism, or you won’t make any money, or journalism is dying, or a journalism degree is useless. There always the idea in the back of your mind that you need to stand out from the rest of the crowd and the temptation arises to do something against ethical standards. In this moment it’s important to remember why you wanted to become a journalist and that you don’t have to lie and fabricate to be amazing.
It’s important for a work environment to stress to it’s employees that fabrication and plagiarism is not tolerated under any circumstance. Bill Kovach, the founding chairman of the Committee of Concerned Journalists believes “ whoever’s in charge of the newsroom is going to have to create a culture and an atmosphere within which everybody knows this is not acceptable. You can’t cheat and stay here. The integrity of everything we put into our report has to be guaranteed by everybody in the process.… You, each person, has a personal responsibility for that.… And in the competitive world we live in now, there are enough people who are still prepared to ease the rules in order not to be beaten on the big stories all the time.” (Robertson, 2005, pg. 34).
In order to resolve this dilemma, I think society as a whole has to support journalists that remain honest and true to what they believe in. As a journalist I need to make a promise to myself to remember why I wanted to study journalism. Stephen Glass should have realized the guilt he had inside him as the point where he should have stopped the fabrication. Newsrooms also need to have more serious fact checkers and sanctions for liars. The world we live in already has questionable morals. To stretch this to the media is detrimental to the future of our world.
Ehrlich, Matthew C. (04/01/2005). “Shattered Glass, Movies, and the Free Press Myth.”. The Journal of communication inquiry (0196-8599), 29 (2), p. 103.
Confronting the Culture. By: Robertson, Lori, American Journalism Review, 10678654, Aug/Sep2005, Vol. 27, Issue 4