When Stephen Glass made the decision to fabricate 27 of the 41 articles that he wrote for The New Republic, he went against all ethical precedent set up for journalists. In particular, by fabricating stories, Glass lied to his audience, violating the trust between writer and reader. Glass also contributed to a lessening of the credibility of The New Republic, despite the paper having no idea of his wrongdoing until it all came to light.
As a journalist, there is a sense of responsibility in keeping the public informed. By making up facts and entire stories, Glass ignored that responsibility that he had to the public. Also by fabricating stories, Glass put The New Republic in a bad light. Since it was the paper that was running all of the false stories, The New Republic lost credibility amongst its readers. This is unfair to all the employees of the paper, including the editor, Charles Lane, managers and other writers.
As stated in the Society of Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics, “journalists should take responsibility for the accuracy of their work. Verify information before releasing it. Use original sources whenever possible,” (Code of Ethics, 2014). Glass violated this code by being dishonest in his work. Not only did Glass not take responsibility for the accuracy of his work, but he also cut corners when verifying the information. When all of his stories were sent to be fact-checked, the other writers only had Glass’ notes to fact-check the story against.
By being dishonest in his work, Glass was being dishonest to his readers. So not only did he fail himself morally, he failed his readers by lying to them. Ivan Shapiro mentions in “Why They Lie: Probing the Explanations of Journalistic Cheating” that “these decision-makers (journalists) were ‘blinded by journalism’s lesser values,’ meaning career ambitions and the ‘thrill of getting a good story,’” (Shapiro, 2006, p. 264). In his quest for the best story, Glass forgot his moral and ethical obligations to the audience, and ultimately paid the price for it.
In fabricating a large chunk of his stories, Glass was undermining the credibility of The New Republic. It was bad enough that Glass was ruining his own reputation, but he was also ruining the reputation of the paper his editors and co-workers worked so hard to uphold. What Glass did was selfish, and it hurt everyone that was doing honest work at The New Republic.
The media is the gateway between audiences and institutions such as the government, so it is the media’s job to report on what those institutions are doing. The media acts as a provider of vital government information to the public that the public would otherwise have no knowledge of. Dianna Conley mentions in “Media Law and Ethics” that “the media updates Americans about the government so citizens can make informed decisions about their government,” (Conley, 2007, p. 4). Although Glass never fabricated such information, anything that The New Republic might publish about the government in the future may no longer hold the integrity that it once did.
Even though Glass fabricated his stories unbeknownst to his editors, Michael Kelly and Charles Lane, he put both of them in a difficult situation. If someone else had discovered Glass’ wrongdoing and gone public with it before the editors found out about it, it would likely cost the editors their job. Kelly was already out as the editor when everything came to light, but if Lane hadn’t been a part of exposing Glass, he too would probably be out of a job. It is the editors duty to make sure that everything his paper is publishing is legitimate. Glass’ fabrication could have cost Lane his job and possibly his credibility as well.
Once Glass knew that people were started to get suspicious of him, he should have come clean. He made himself look even worse by not admitting to his wrongdoing when he was first confronted. Instead, he kept trying to prove that his stories were true and that there was no fabrication. He took Lane to the conference center and the restaurant that he allegedly went to with the star of his “Hack Heaven” piece, Ian Restil, and by doing so, all but solidified the case against him when it was revealed that it was impossible for those two locations to fit into his story.
It will be nearly impossible to wipe out plagiarism and fabrication for good in journalism. No matter how much effort is put in to try and stomp it out, it will always be prevalent. Journalists need to learn to do what is right and ethical, and even though they may dream to one day be the best, they need to realize a lot more is at risk than a tainted reputation. While it is up to each individual journalist to do what is ethical, it is also up to other writers and editors to be checking up on each other.
With technology, it is a lot easier to verify sources and information than it was back when Glass wrote all his false storis. Unlike when Glass’ co-workers were forced to fact-check his stories next to his own (made-up) notes, writers can now look up anything they need to on the internet to see whether a story is accurate or not. It’s not that hard to verify a source or a piece of information anymore. Even Adam Penenberg, working for Forbes Digital Tool, was able to quickly figure out that the sources Glass named in “Hack Heaven” were nonexistent with much less technology than is around today. While it’s up to the journalist to make the right choice and not post false information, I believe that it is also the duty of the fact-checkers to make sure that false information does not get published. And then once an article is checked, the editor should give it one final look to confirm that the article is good to go.
Stephen Glass’ story proves that it is nearly impossible to falsify stories and get away with it, because in the end it’s more than likely that the truth will come out. Even though Glass put in a huge effort to make all his stories seem legitimate, there is always something that will cause a downfall; in his case it was Penenberg wanted to write a followup story on “Hack Heaven”. A good lesson to learn from Stephen Glass is that the truth will always come out, especially in this day and age. I can see why journalists would want all the positive praise that comes with writing a good article, but if it comes from fabrication, then that positive praise will soon turn south. While Glass received all the fame and glory he desired immediately after his articles were published, that was all forgotten when the truth came out, and his name was tarnished for good.
References
Conley, D. (2007). Media Law and Ethics: Intersection of The New York Times Code of Ethics and Cases. National Communication Association, 1-36.
Shapiro, I. (2006). Why They Lie: Probing the Explanations for Journalistic Cheating.Canadian Journal Of Communication, 31(1), 261-266.
Society of Professional Journalists (2014), Code of Ethics