The Truth Behind Deception
To be a creditable journalist one must be able to follow the set of ethical rules that come with the job. Even at times it may seem impossible to stay completely away from wanting to embellish your story or use choice words in your article to make it more excepting. However, the ability to write something that not only catches the readers’ attention but also is completely truthful whether revolving local news or even global issues is very valued is what makes the job so respectable. The reason a journalist is a distinguished career is because what you write, the world believes. A lot of trust comes with writing for news and media outlets because what you report is taken as the truth. Which brings me to the two points that were expressed through the movie Shattered Glass.
Situational Definition:
Shattered Glass is a film about Steven Glass who uses being a reporter for The New Republic in Washington D.C. to gain trust and respect. He also uses his position to his advantage in order to lie and deceive his readers and co-workers. Glass would first work hard to gain trust from employees and readers. It is more then unethical, it is morally wrong to use the audience’s trust to your advantage in the news world. After he gained trust he would use it to his benefit to be able to lie and deceive in order to get the story he desired. Lying and deception as well and falsely earning trust are both of the major ethical issues that Steve Glass had done.
Analysis:
No one can exactly grasp why Steven Glass decided to falsely write 27 stories except for him, but through the movie Shattered Glass you are able to get an understanding of his reasons. The two major ethical issues that are seen through the film is trust and deception or in other terms lying. Why would Glass do this to his readers? That answer seemed clear during the movie, to further his career.
However, there are ethical issues that are compromised through his selfish actions. Not only does his name become tarnished and associated with a liar, but also so does his paper that he was writing for. This is where trust comes in. If a magazine or journalist is known as being trustworthy the readers will believe everything they say. If you use the audiences trust to your advantage to lie and get away with it is extremely morally unethical.
To go further into trust you get to deception. “Journalists are expected to tell the truth, but in what appears to be a paradox, they may have to deceive to get at the truth.” (Lee) To lie to make either make your story better or in Steven Glass’s case, to completely make up a story is ethically wrong. This is wrong in a different way, from using trust as a benefit, it is wrong in journalism ethics. Journalists have a set of rules to follow and live by and the top thing on the list is to not lie. If journalist were allowed to lie and fabricate stories the career would not be so lucrative. That is why all stories should be fact checked until they are completely sure they are real and truthful before putting them in the paper. As it stated in Shattered Glass, “there is an ongoing process of selecting ‘‘facts’’, in accordance with their alleged importance for society,” (Mun ̃oz-Torres) but I believe that this system should be taken more serious. This should be done especially in high name newspapers or magazines that report on current events or elections. With topics like these the publishers must be completely sure because that is where the audiences and voters get their information.
Conclusion:
After watching Shattered Glass I was able to understand how lying and trust are two of the major factors with in the journalism world that have to be looked at and followed. I now believe that to be a journalist is extremely difficult because of all of the unbiased accuracy every article has to be. I learned that sometimes the truth is not always fun, but a good writer will find a way to express the story in an interesting way with being able to keep the facts intact. It is very hard to be able to be completely honest but also once you are you are able to gain trust from the readers. Something I also learned from researching about journalism is the idea that trust from your audience is even more important that how excellent the article is. If it is well written and truthful your loyal readers will buy, read and like the article. Overall, ethical issues are a major problem within the journalism world and are shown through Shattered Glass. Through Steven Glass’ situation it should be an example of how if you lie and deceive your readers and break their trust it will only cause bad in the long- run and also shows how important being a journalist is.
References:
Lee, S. (2005). Predicting Tolerance of Journalistic Deception. Journal of Mass Media Ethics, 22-42. Retrieved February 6, 2015.
Muñoz-Torres, J. (2012). Truth And Objectivity In Journalism. Journalism Studies, 1-17. Retrieved February 6, 2015.