In Billy Ray’s Shattering Glass, the real life story of Stephen Glass’s journalistic career at the esteemed News Republic and the exposure of his journalistic fraud. His cinematically vivid stories and engaging personality quickly gave him the edge at News Republic and in the journalism world, but they were either completely fabricated or were factual stories with fictitious quotations.
Out of the 41 articles Glass wrote for News Republic, at least 27 of them had some type of fabrication involved. In these 27 articles, Glass broke two fundamental rules of journalism: never fabricate a story and never willfully deceive another, whether they be your coworkers or your audience.
As an aspiring journalist at one of the most influential political magazines in the country, the pressure to make any sort of impact is high, as well as the desire to even be published. The actual fabrication of stories show the desire that Glass had to write something memorable, a desire that all journalists have. The willful deceit of others, however, show a much more manipulative side to him. Whether it was the fact that he lied to his audience about events that took place or manipulated his coworkers to cover up for him through deception, Glass completely disregarded a moral code in order to pass off his work.
Through his deception, Glass tarnished the integrity of not only himself, but of News Republic and his coworkers. “In mass communications, truth telling is essential…in journalism, deception goes to the heart of the profession” (Lee, 2003, pg 1.) Similar to the recent scandal of Brian Williams, when it was proven that he was lying, brought all that NBC had ever reported into question as well. Writing for News Republic, which considered itself scrupulously fact-checked, Glass managed to bring “play on the loopholes, since the checkers did not insist on talking to the people whom Glass allegedly interviewed” (Shapiro, 2006 ,pg. 266). In order to limit the amount of fabrication in publishing, it would be beneficial for more in-depth research to be done by the publication, so that they will not be compromised as well.
Glass went out of his way to make his coworkers like him, and was able to pass off any of his misinformation or questionable writing by manipulating these feelings. This provides the other ethical dilemma in Shattering Glass, for willful deception was Glass’s primary problem. There is no real way to regulate whether or not journalists deceive their publications or their audience, but the trust placed in them should be done cautiously.
There are no real solutions to this dilemma that end optimistically, for trust is hard-won and the professional world is unforgiving. While the fabrication of stories could land a journalist a job at a creative writing publication or as a fiction writer, no serious publication would ever take them on again. With a journalist deceiving their audience and publication, there would be a deep-seated mistrust in all publications you work for and any factual reporting would never be taken seriously. Like Stephen Glass, there is a chance that a journalist would never be able to hold down a job in a communications industry, and would have to search for work outside of their field. The lesson that should be learned from this is that you only get one chance, and by following the footsteps of Glass, you could easily compromise everything that you ever worked for.
References:
Lee, S.T. (2003). Lying to Tell the Truth: Journalists and The Social Concept of Decision. International Communication Association, 1. Retrieved February 6, 2015.
Shapiro, I. (2006). Why They Lie: Probing the Explanations for Journalistic Cheating. Canadian Journal of Communication, 266. Retrieved February 6, 2015.