Deja Person
Comm409:News Media Ethics
Stephen Glass, a journalist for “The New Republic” created false stories and published them as factual. Not only deceiving the readers but his co-workers and editor at New Republic. Stephen Glass published 27 false storied out of 41 stories that he had written and published. Not only were these pieces great, highly interesting reads but they were not questioned at all due to his credibility that was already established. His stories were published in a number of other major magazines from the “Rolling Stone” to “New York Times”. At the peak of his career, it all came to a crashing halt as people started fact checking one of his articles “Hacker’s Hav
These fabrications started out minor, a quote or two, here and there. Then once the errors went unnoticed, he developed a pattern for storytelling. Once these stories were created, they were also admired by the other writers at the magazine. Not only is there the issue of honesty and integrity but enabling. When the other reporters at “The New Republic” did not catch on to Glass’s antics but supported them, praised them. This is not only Stephen’s fault is is his peers also, his editor’s. By everyone being so blind to how charming and characteristic Glass was, they would have smelled the bullshit. This is a main issue to me that forms an intense ethical message. We, as humans let our hearts take over and ignore our brains in personal and business situations.
Another issue that brings a message to my attention is the fact that because he was giving the readers what they wanted and everyone loves his ideas. That fueled Glass to keep going on to make up more knockouts. He fed off that energy and did anything necessary to cover his tracks. He made a fake website, fake phone numbers and voicemails just to deceive his editor Chuck Lane.
“He wanted desperately to save his ass at the expense of anything,” said Chuck Lane. “He would have destroyed the magazine.”
Stephen would have kept going if he could, because it was working. He was progressing whether or not he was a phony does not matter because it was a success. Each piece he made up was successful.
“His writing was in demand partly because Glass managed to find stories that were so compelling that they seemed to good to be true.” Quote from Michael Johnson.
What does that say about society? Do we really value authentication? If he kept feeding us these lies would we live in a false world? How far will we let someone else drive our attention for the purpose of entertainment? It comes down to the common principles of integrity. They did not want to believe that Stephen was lying because it was gaining the magazine more readers weekly Why did they feel that their stories were not as good as Glass? Because they were real, maybe the work of other employees was less interesting. That is what I think, that because they wanted to stay as a whole, they all stood by Glass even while he was lying to them.
References
Quote1:http://www.vanityfair.com/magazine/1998/09/bissinger199809
Quote2:http://heinonline.org.ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/geojlege26&collection=journals&page=789