Blog #2
In the movie “Shattered Glass”, one main ethical issue that was an essential problem in the movie was fabrication. Stephen Glass repeatedly fabricated story after story for himself and other people enjoyment. He became one of the top journalists at the New Republic magazine simply by lying. Stephen Glass fabricated 27 out of 41 stories published at the New Republic magazine. As a journalist, you are never supposed to lie to your readers; you are supposed to inform them on what’s going on around the world.
Another ethical issue in the movie was deception. Including lying to his readers, Stephen Glass also lied to his editor and co-workers. Deceiving his peers about how he discovered these fascinating stories, facts, notes and sources. Stephen Glass created problems in his working community because of his lies. In result of it, he lost the trust and friendships between his co-workers.
Believe it or not, there are many “Stephen Glass’s” in the world. Some people get a trill of lying to see other people reactions towards the lie. In Stephen Glass case, he enjoyed seeing his co-workers excited when it was his turn to present his stories. He loved his co-workers reactions to whatever fascinating story he recently fabricated. I Believed Stephen Glass was becoming a pathological lair while working at the New Republic. Studies show that one of the key characteristics of pathological lying is may be its compulsive nature, with pathological liars “unable to
Control their lying,” although another term they use is “impulsive.” With pathological liars, they can get to a point where sometimes they may be unaware of lying. Stephen Glass even admitted on “60 minutes” interview that “he couldn’t keep up with his lies and he had to keep lying to cover up his lies”.
The ethical issues he faced for his numerous fabricated stories and deceiving his peers was losing his moral values, gaining a bad reputation, losing his job and further opportunities in life. Journalists can make an honest mistake here and there in their career such as a mistaken fact error or unreliable sources. But a journalist should never mislead the public. Readers depend on the truth and facts from a journalist.
As I mentioned earlier, there are many other journalist such as Stephen Glass that has fabricated and deceived their co-workers. Doing more research on other journalists and similar cases these issues is more common than usually. Some journalists reveal that they have or known other journalists that have used deception in their work. “14 of the 20 people journalists interviewed confessed to this act.
In journalism, journalist proclaims that deception is a good use in newsgathering. An example in newsgathering would be investigating scams and crimes being committed by people and organizations. “Justifications are offered routinely as journalists narrate their use of deception. Their attempts to normalize deception or make it socially acceptable demonstrate that deception is a prima facie wrong (Elliot & Culver, 1992). “
Different situations deserve different consequences and in Stephen Glass case his punishment fit the crime. His boss, co-workers, peers and readers could no longer trust him. So the decision to fire him was appropriate. He validated too many ethical codes as a journalist and the name he built for himself was tarnished because of it. In other cases in deceiving when interviewing people to get the truth can be used for a good case as long as deceiving is used in an ethical way. I agree with this method because there is a lot of people and organizations that makes money constantly by scamming innocent people out of their money. I believe as a journalist, deceiving scammers to unfold the truth to readers would be used in an ethical way.
In life we face situations, but it is up to us to remember our personal morals that we valve in ourselves to not do unethical things. We have a choice to do the right thing, Stephen Glass had a choice to stop lying before the situation gotten worse.
References:
- Dike CC, Baranoski M, Griffith EEH: Pathological lying revis- ited. J Am Acad Psychiatry Law 33:342–9, 2005
- Elliot, D. (1989). Journalistic deception. In P. Y. Windt, P. C. Appleby, M. P. Battin, L. P. Francis, & B.M. Landesman (Eds.), Ethical issues in the professions (pp. 144–146). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
- Elliot, D., & Culver, C. (1992). Defining and analyzing journalistic deception. Journal of Mass Media Ethics, 7(2), 69–84.
