Situation definition
The movie “Shattered Glass” tells the story of dishonest journalist reporter Stephen Glass who was caught fabricating a story titled “Hack Heaven” which was published in The New Republic. The article was about a 15-year-old computer hacker who hacked a software company by the name of “Jukt Micronics”. Multiple red flags popped up following the publication of the article; when his editors searched the company online, no website results came up. When they tried contacting the company, they were sent into voicemail every time. It was at this point that they realized Glass was not telling the truth about this article, to which he ultimately came clean and admitted that most of the material in his article (and many other articles of his) was indeed completely made up. It was eventually discovered that 27 out of the 41 articles that he wrote for The New Republic were fabricated.
Analysis
The first main ethical issue in this situation is of course, the act of fabrication itself by Glass. Not only did he make up quotes, but according to the Vanity Fair article in which the movie Shattered Glass was based off of, the author stated that “Glass created fake letterheads, memos, faxes, and phone numbers; he presented fake handwritten notes, fake typed notes from imaginary events written with intentional misspellings, fake diagrams of who sat where at meetings that never transpired, fake voice mails from fake sources” (Bissinger, 1998). To sum it up, Glass made up anything and everything that he could. Every journalist ought to know that the most important rule in the journalism code of ethics is to “seek the truth and report it”; therefore fact that Glass completely and utterly disregarded this is concerning (to say the very least).
As if creating all of the material in the first place wasn’t bad enough, the worst part about the situation was the utter betrayal by Glass of his colleagues and editors—the people who trusted him the most. Not only did he destroy his own professional life, but he ruined those of his coworkers—especially the Editor-In-Chief of The New Republic, Charles Lane, who had to resign from his position as a result of Glass’ dishonesty. In an article published by the American Journalistic Review, Lane stated that “the staff was devastated” (Robertson) as a result of Glass’ actions, which left the accountability of of the magazine and all of its’ employees in question.
Conclusion
So why did Glass make up almost everything that he wrote? College professor Ivor Shapiro suggested in a statement from author David Callahan that the Blair and Glass scandals can be attributed to “’the reaping of big rewards’ that come with big success in the ‘star system’ that divides highly paid media elites from poorly paid ordinary achievers”. (Shapiro, 2006) Put plainly, he suggests that fabrication can be a result from the pressure to create extraordinary work in order to make an extraordinary salary. Though this is a valid point, and many journalists undoubtedly face extreme pressure to do well, that still does not justify the complete fabrication, no matter the situation.
If there is any lesson that should be taken from this movie it is that making up material of any kind is never okay, under any circumstance. Even if it is the most “simple” lie that you are creating, the second you lie once, you will continue to lie more and more until you end up metaphorically lying in a deep grave that you dug yourself.
References
Bissinger, Buzz (1998, September) Retrieved from https://www.vanityfair.com/magazine/1998/09/bissinger199809
Shapiro, I. (2006). Why They Lie: Probing the Explanations for Journalistic Cheating. Canadian Journal Of Communication, 31(1), 261-266 Retrieved from http://digital.library.ryerson.ca/islandora/object/RULA%3A4744/datastream/OBJ/view
Robertson, Lori (1998 June). Shattered Glass at The New Republic American Journalism Review Archives Retrieved from http://ajrarchive.org/article.asp?id=1838