Darian Somers
Situation definition
In the movie, Shattered Glass, we are told the story of Steven Glass who fabricates stories and quotes in order to appease his editors and make them happy. Glass, who works for the New Republic, fabricated parts of more than 25 stories of the 41 he wrote. In the movie as in real life, Glass presented two ethical dilemmas we often see in journalism. The first is lying to editors and the second is lying to the audience.
Analysis
In Steven Glass’ fabrication of stories, he first lies to his editors, something that is wrong for establishing trust within new source and an audience. Lying to his editors is the first step that causes lying to be seen. By lying to his editors, Glass was trying to show that even though he was so young, he was much more powerful than them. “The deceiver places himself like a master over a slaved,” writes Paul Braun (Braun 1988). By getting a job at an early age, Glass seems to believe his editors trust him so he feels he can manipulate them. When he does that, he also lies to someone else — the audience.
Glass’ stories create a mistrust between him and the audience and the New Republic and the audience. When Glass lied to his editors, he would later lie to his audience as well. Glass has a duty to tell the truth to the audience, a basic core of a journalists work. Lying to an audience is just as big of a problem as is lying to an editor or a new source. Lee (Lee 2005) writes, “The differential treatment of audiences and newsmakers is a flawed one; in the minds of journalists, these two groups of people are mutually exclusive, but by viewing audiences and newsmakers as separate, journalists risk alienating all.”
Ultimately that is what Glass did. He alienated everyone in the situation. Lying to his editors forced them out of the equation. Throughout the movie, we saw Glass brush aside editors when asked for sources. He alienated his audience because they are fundamentally believing in him.
Conclusion
The first way this could have been prevented was to slowly introduce Glass to journalism this way. It seems to be that Glass was overloaded. That’s a lot of stories for a place that normally writes longer form. If the editors would have eased him into the job, he may have not lied. It is no way is the editors’ fault that he lied, but it might have been prevented if the editors realized he was under a lot of stress.
Another way this could have been fixed would have been a better demand from his editors to tell the truth. If they had questions, they should have held stories and confronted Glass. Often times, those stories are evergreen and can be published whenever.
Resources
Braun, P. (1988). Deception in journalism. Journal of Mass Media Ethics, 3(1), 77-83. Retrieved February 5, 2015, from http://www.erlbaum.com/Journals/journals/JMME/jmme.htm
Lee, S. (2005). Predicting Tolerance of Journalistic Deception. Journal of Mass Media Ethics, 20(1), 22-42. Retrieved February 5, 2015, from http://web.b.ebscohost.com.ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=f4367794-0f32-4b47-a1b7-80ba96ce4f52@sessionmgr114&vid=15&hid=124