Shattered Glass follows the journalistic career of young and ambitious writer Stephen Glass. Glass writes for The New Republic, a prestigious magazine based in D.C. known for their influence on powerful figureheads and political leaders. While writing for The New Republic, Glass win the hearts of his co-workers with his humor and intriguing stories, little did they know that more than half of those stories were either partially or completely fabricated. The article that ended up bringing his dishonest writing to life was “Hack Haven”. An article was written about a 15 –year-old hacker who receives money from a company he hacked called “Jukt Micronics”. After the article is published, multiple red-flags come up regarding some of the facts. “Jukt Micronics” is nowhere to be found online or in any of the books. When anyone tries to call or contact any of Glass’ “sources”, they get either a busy signal or a voicemail. After these discrepancies are revealed, Glass is forced to admit to his manager everything he did wrong. He reveals that the article ends up having nearly no truth or facts to back it up. So, in the end, The New Republic launches a formal investigation on Glass and determines that 27 of 41 articles he wrote were dishonest, and retracts them.
There are multiple ethical issues with this situation and if you compare Glass’ writing with the five core principles of ethical journalism, you’ll notice he breaks the rules. There are two main codes of conduct that he breaks time and time again. First, is truth and accuracy. Every writer should not only tell the truth, but confirm it and make sure it is accurate to the best of your ability, and when you “cannot corroborate information [you] should say so” (The 5 Principles of Ethical Journalism). Glass abandons his ethics, by not only disregarding the accuracy of his sources and facts but by blatantly lying. The second code of conduct he breaks is his accountability. “A sure sign of professionalism and responsible journalism is the ability to hold ourselves accountable” (The 5 Principles of Ethical Journalism). Glass was given multiple opportunities throughout the investigation to come clean, and be held accountable for his decisions. Instead, he creates a fake website and asks his brother to pretend to be a source, all so that he could continue down this self-destructive of a path he was on. “He wanted desperately to save his ass at the expense of anything,” said Chuck Lane. “He would have destroyed the magazine” (Bissinger, 2008). He even repeatedly says throughout the movie each time a new lie surfaces, “I didn’t do anything wrong,” but who was he trying to convince; his manager or himself?
To put it simply, Glass lost everyone’s trust. He lost the trust of his manager, his colleagues, and his readers. In the end, it came back to end his career. Glass lost his job and ruined his reputation, “all reputable journalists…must adopt a zero-tolerance policy; break the trust once, and you never will write non-fiction again” (Shapiro, 2006). That is exactly what happened to Glass, but the difference is he didn’t just lie once, he lied time and time again and became confident in his skills to fabricate the truth, and eventually had to pay the price. Glass was rightfully fired for everything he did. He lied, deceived everyone and never fessed up to his actions until he was pinned in the corner.
The lesson that should be learned is that the fabrication or alteration of any facts and material included in any of your work as a journalist is strictly prohibited. Not only could you lose your job and reputation, but you are misleading your audience and providing them with false information. Lying is a slippery slope, one lie can lead you to lie again in the future. Even though you think any lie, no matter how small, won’t affect the story or you, it does. It affects your credibility not only as a journalist but as a person.
References:
Five Principles of Journalism – Media Ethics. (n.d.). Retrieved September 20, 2017, from http://ethicaljournalismnetwork.org/who-we-are/5-principles-of-journalism
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
Bissinger, B. (2015, June 30). Shattered Glass. Retrieved September 20, 2017, from https://www.vanityfair.com/magazine/1998/09/bissinger199809