Part 1:
The movie Shattered Glass, is based on a real story of a young journalist by the name of Stephen Glass. At the time, Glass was looked upon as one of The New Republic’s young rising journalist. The title alone had big expectations to fill and for Glass, the image he created was simply more important to maintain than his integrity to the New Republic’s readers, his colleagues and to himself. Therefore, Glass jeopardizes his journalism career by fabricating about twenty-seven out of the forty-one articles that he had written for the magazine, since some were fabricated, but contained real information and or sources.
Two main ethical messages that stood out to me were Glass’ fabricated stories and the lies he told to his editor, Chuck, which he continued to do so to the very end of his career. According to The Ethical Journalist textbook, the SPJ code states, “Journalists are accountable to their readers, listeners, viewers and each other” (Foreman, 2010, p.95). In addition to this statement, it strongly implies that your accountability as a journalist translates into [your] responsibility to police the profession (Foreman, 2010, p.95). Honesty and trust are the two most crucial traits that every journalist must have and be in constant usage with them because you are putting your career at risk, including your editor, other colleagues and the company.
Part 2:
According to the scholarly paper “The Personality of Plagiarism” suggests maybe there is more to the presumption of plagiarists written off as lazy journalists or incapable to keep up and execute. Maybe there is a psychological standpoint behind this practiced issue. A psychiatrist who interprets plagiarism was quoted from Newsweek by stating [plagiarism as] “a desperate attempt to salvage self-esteem.”
Another important point of view was stated by Thomas Mallon, who wrote about plagiarism in Stolen Words, by stating, “ You cannot escape the conclusion there’s a psychological element to it.” And I could not disagree at all.
Throughout the movie there were countless times where I thought to myself, ‘ something is off about this guy [Stephen]’. As the story unfolded I came to a conclusion that Glass is a pathological liar. When questions arose about his sources and its verifications, often times he only became concerned by asking “am I in trouble” before every time he asked to leave to check his notes at home. Side note: this request became quite a pattern. Also, to ask a question like that implies a guilty expression because it’s off-putting in itself since you should be confident within your sources and story. This all boils down to his incapability to not cover the truth and at least keep honesty within his relationship to Chuck.
Glass’ ego was all about feeding his self-esteem by gaining the attention and recognition that he felt would satisfy him. Whether it was from his fellow colleagues and or the elite companies that were eager to talk about the potential future he could have with them. All it gave Glass was the confidence to continue this path, since the results were handed in the way he desired.
According to Scholarly Journal “Why They Lie: Probing the Explanations for Journalistic Cheating, Glass did an interview with CBS-TV’s 60 minutes to promote his book and the reasoning behind choosing deception. He stated that temptation would be everywhere for journalists. Without a doubt this was his weakness, he said, “ I loved the electricity, I loved going to story conference meetings and telling people what my story was going to be and seeing them in front of me, excited. I wanted every story to be a home run”. Glass’ reasoning is understandable and maybe relatable to others; however, in an ethical standpoint this results to questioning where his journalist’s loyalty remains. Especially since he went to great lengths to creating Jukt Micronoics as well as their website.
Part 3: Conclusion
Although I have no personal journalistic experience in the work force, I standby knowing your limit. What I mean by this is to know what you can handle. Not by your ideal and surely not by what others think your level of capability should stand at. The risk of setting yourself up for failure or worse losing the credibility as a journalist can all be avoided when you know yourself. Another way to look at this is to view the struggles you may encounter as a steeping stone to growth as a journalist. By far you will learn more than skimming by at the surface from the unethical way.
Lastly, I think one piece of advice that could help steer you away from choosing any wrong doing is to remember the repercussions. Think what are all the possible worst outcomes that can come from this mistake. Even though it appears to be a scare tactic, it is also a great convincing method to do right and remain loyal/trustworthy to everyone.
Part 4: (References)
Foreman, G. (2010). The Ethical Journalist. Chichester, West Sussex, UK. Wiley-Blackwell
Shapiro, I. (2006). Why They Lie: Probing the Explanations for Journalistic Cheating. Canadian Journal Of Communication, 31(1), 262-263.