Part 1:
There are several issues that arise within the journalistic world that evoke intense ethical messages – two of them being fabrication and deception. Fabrication is where journalists make things up, such as stories, and pass them off as genuine information. Deception is a concept where a journalist lies or bluffs to get what they want, whether it is information or fame. Both fabrication and deception unfortunately have been common throughout the history of media and news reporting.
I believe that deceiving your audience and colleagues is one of the worst ethical mistakes that you can make as a journalist. Journalists have a moral duty to report the truth and only the truth. The media holds a social responsibility to the public – the public relies on media outlets to honestly inform them and give them knowledge of their environment that they have the right to know. As of the colleagues and editors of the news outlet that a journalist has worked with, they owe them the moral duty to report the truth as well. By fabricating stories, one can force them into a cruel public light and put them at the risk of losing their jobs and credibility as news reporters as well.
Part 2:
The movie “Shattered Glass” documents the journalistic career of a well-known, much-loved writer named Stephen Glass. Glass was a journalist for a former journal called The New Republic based out of New York City. The attention that Glass received from the public quickly changed from extremely positive to negative once news broke out that he fabricated a majority of the articles that he wrote for The New Republic, deceiving his colleagues and readers in the process. I believe that Glass did this to get a rise from people, and to get the love and attention that these fabricated articles rapidly brought him. These fabricated articles were stories that people had never heard of before, news that had never been reported, and brought a journalistic spark and thrill that people became addicted to.
In a scholarly journal titled Why They Lie: Probing the Explanations for Journalistic Cheating by Ivor Shapiro, Shapiro (2006) goes on to point out what Glass wrote in his book called The Fabulist. The book describes the story of his fabrications through a character that mimics him and his actions. According to Shapiro (2006) Glass states that the character “longs to be admired and loved; he cheats to avoid rejection” (p. 262). Glass criticizes the pressures of the workplace, and blames those pressures for his fabrications and deceptions in the media. Shapiro (2006) reviews Glass’ book and focuses on the fact that during “the fictional “Glass’” first flirtation with fabrication, the celebrated but professionally untrained star pitches a story to his colleagues, fails to find reportable facts that live up to what was promised, then faces pressure from editors to provide more details—and, after that, more stories like it. He finds himself increasingly encouraged to write “snarky, glib, superior” copy and learns that what a journalist is looking for is “a good story; accuracy’s only half of it” (p.262). Shapiro (2006) supports the idea that Glass fabricated these stories in order to get fame and to get the pleasure of lying and not getting caught.
The journal Media Law and Ethics: Intersection of the New York Times Code of Ethics and Cases by Dianna Conley addresses the need for an ethical media and the duties of a journalist and the media as a whole. The triple-nature of the media: being at once an industry, political institution and a public service can conflict with each other, but because of that, puts even more significance on upholding the moral duty to the public (p. 5). There is an unwritten agreement that the media serves these three functions for the public. The public needs to be well informed and educated, and especially today more than ever with the fast processing and exchange of information, journalists and news reports have to be genuine.
Conley (2009) states that a learned morality in the profession must be enacted to overcome the current nature of the media to entertain, rather than inform (p. 6). It is so easy to get caught up in the profession and to produce dramatic stories to get attention and to feed to want of the public to hear such stories. If journalists bring it back to the basics, and realize fabricated stories will cause more harm than good, then they would stop producing them. There seems to be a lack of ethical enforcement in the workplace that needs to be constructed and set in stone.
This day and age there is a new emphasis on the ethics of media, which may explain why it has become such an issue. In the past, we did not have rapid access to information and networks of people to confirm facts and sources like we do now. People did not really care if something small slipped past the editor and got published. If Glass were to be a reporter many decades ago, he may have gotten away with his fabricated stories. Since the media is always ever-changing now, there needs to be a solid basis of ethical conduct that everyone can compromise on as I mentioned above.
Part 3:
Facing the challenges such as the ones that Glass did would be life changing. If I were in the situation of Stephen Glass, I feel like the best way to try to “fix” my position would be to come clean on my actions. Apologizing to the public would have to be the first plan of action. In reality, it is the public who Glass harmed the most by his fabricated stories. After apologizing to the public, I would then apologize to The New Republic. After putting my editor and colleagues through that kind of shame, that would be the least that I could do for them and the company. I would focus on addressing the fact that my actions gave the media a immoral, negative image. The public needs to trust the media, and by publishing fabricated stories, that trust was easily destroyed.
The bigger issue that I see here is how easily these stories were published and printed nationally and even internationally. It amazes me that it took years to catch Glass in his lies and deceptions. If the media wants to uphold its credibility, they need to crack down harder on these journalists for fact-checks, source-checks, plagiarism or any kind ethical breaks. The moral duty and social responsibility of journalists needs to be extremely emphasized in the workplace and newsroom now more than ever.
Part 4:
References:
Conley, D. (2009). Media Law and Ethics: Intersection of The New York Times Code of Ethics and Cases. Conference Papers — National Communication Association, 1.
Shapiro, I. (2006). Why They Lie: Probing the Explanations for Journalistic Cheating. Canadian Journal Of Communication, 31(1), 261-266.