A journalist is supposed to be a watchdog for the community, not deceive it. Stephen Glass broke that mold and tried to pass off his false and just completely made up stories to help him skyrocket to the top of the journalism world. Glass’ scandal breaks many ethics in journalism. Fabrication is a huge issue when it comes to being an unethical journalist. If you’re going to feel the need to fabricate a story or people, rather than go out and get the information yourself – you don’t deserve to call yourself a journalist. Another issue that makes you an unethical journalist is plagiarism. People have been plagiarizing since way before our time, or even our ancestors times. Steven Glass’ picture should be next to the word unethical in the dictionary.
The issue that I think needs to be more discussed is the pressure that young journalists feel that they have. As a former writer for the Daily Collegian, I feel like there is so much pressure when you first enter the journalism world, and we’re young and sometimes don’t know the difference especially if it gets you a little further in this competitive world.
When you make such a story and scandal that glass does, there is no way to get around it in the future. It will follow you forever.
A similar issue happened here at Penn State last semester. A student reporter for the Daily Collegian lied about getting quotes from Sue Paterno. As I learned about this, I tried to figure out why he would do this in a little town like State College? How did he think he was going to get away with this? This young reporter plagiarized quotes and other facts from a different news source. I’m not sure what happened to his position at the Daily Collegian, but what he did will certainly follow him for his entire journalism career. Not only did he probably lose his position as a reporter there, but he also put his major in jeopardy as he was in the College of Communication.
Canadian Journal of Communication coins the term serial fabricator is reserved for the unethical journalists like Stephen Glass. If you see it’s easy once, you’re going to feel like you can get away with it more than once. Once Glass got caught, he felt self pity and felt the role to play the victim. The article simple states they did it because they did. Of course, every news media organization has fact-checking, so yes Glass made up the stories and made up the people but he also went as to far as to make up the fact-checking. They have loops holes, and Glass was very trusted and that misplace trust can lead to scandals like Glass’. Back to the pressure of being a young journalist, this article supports that the journalism world is becoming increasingly stressful. It’s important now than every to get ‘THE’ story, no matter how much workload that’s going to give you. That is no excuse to plagiarize your entire journalism career.
A Northeaster professors looks at who should be at blame for the fabrication, besides that fabricator themselves. When the New Republic fired Glass, this wasn’t there first time they were critizeid for one of their writers pulling this kind of stunt. Along with the time of the announcement of the Glass scandal, another reporter for the Boston Globe was fired due to plagiarism. Bill Kirtz, the publisher of this article, compares Smiths’ scandal ‘Another front-page disgrace, another round of apologies and hand-wringing, another public glimpse of the newspaper sausage being made.’ Like Glass, Smith made excuses for herself saying that it was too much and that she cut corners. The point that this article is trying to make is that at the time of all these plagiarizers, the journalism world was full of them and there are people who did the same thing like Glass or Smith, just didn’t get as much attention as they did – yet, they live with the repercussions of it everyday.
I truly believe that knowing to plagiarized and or fabricate a story is within. You can make yourself do it, or you can make yourself not do it. But it’s not whether your born with the ability or not, it’s whether you chose to do it or not. Some people will do whatever needs to be done to reach the top of their game, even if it comprises their entire career.
Most of the time, people think they can get away with it. Little do they realize at the time they are fabricating these stories, that the consequences of them doing this is going to outweigh the few minutes of fame they may or may not get for doing ‘the’ story. And watching “Shattered Glass” you learn that the truth is going to come out and you will end up paying with your career.
References
1. Shapiro, I. (2006). Why They Lie: Probing the Explanations for Journalistic Cheating. Canadian Journal Of Communication, 31(1), 261-266.
2. Kirtz, B. (1998). Troubling times in journalism. Quill, 86(6), 14.