In the movie shattered glass, the two main issues that bring strong ethical messages are the lack of truth telling and the fabrication and deception caused by glass. Those two things stood out to me because it helped me get a better understanding of what deception and dishonesty can do. It doesn’t only damage the journalist, but the reader’s as well. As a future professional journalist, I was able to see how much it hurt to have a journalist lie to me, being the public and how it affected how I trusted him from there on out.
Glass neglected to tell the truth not only in his stories but to his own colleagues and bosses as well when given the opportunity. He practiced deceiving the public about stories involving fake people and the one that got him caught was the computer hacker one. He time and time again produced stories that he, himself knew weren’t true, but tried to get everyone else to believe.
Steven Glass was a young upcoming writer who was under pressure and ran into ethical dilemmas that led him to fabricate sources, information and nearly everything in his stories. Glass violated these ethic codes because he was a young, new professional journalist who felt under pressure to write great stories and stressed out about going to school and being a full-time journalist. The ethical issues at stake in this movie are fabrication and deception. These ethical issues are the most prominent because throughout glass’ tenure at the new republic, he gathered fake sources, made up scenes, and even went as far as to make up business’ and voicemails for them. The “Media Law and Ethics: Intersection of The New York Times Code of Ethics and Cases” article I read commented on the steps writers like Glass and Jayson Blair took to deceit so many, “Journalist such as Glass and Blair seemed to have pushed aside ethical principles to attract an audience and fulfill the bottom line.” Blair also got fired for fabricating a number stories as well. Both journalist indeed, failed to seek truth and tell it.
That is something that we went over in class the very first day. We must always tell the truth because that is the only way to be a successful journalist and sleep at night, as professor Z would say. Glass failed to abide by any of the rules cited in our book such as the golden mean, ends-based thinking or rule-based thinking. Him not using those tools cost him not only his job, but his respect from colleagues and the audience. The journal also pointed out how hard it was to get every news room to follow the code of ethics that are put in place for journalist to follow.
When I’m facing the same challenges that Glass was facing, I like to take a step back and look at what I’m up against and try to devise a plan that will aid me in taking some of the stress off of trying to handle school and putting together a story. I take more of an ends-based thinking approach when going through things like this. Look at the consequences of each decision I have the option of making and pick the one with the least consequences. You could even add in some of the golden rule because it forces you to put yourself in the shoes of the public and make a better decision. Though I may be giving up temporary praise, I will forever keep my dignity and respect and trust as a journalist.
Once you lose trust with the audience, they will stop listening to you and you become irrelevant because no one trusts anything you say, rather it be true or not. Another journal that I read went into detail about how online news media is hurting the credibility of news rooms and journalist. When you have random news, sites putting up articles anonymously, lying and writing stories they never investigated; It makes it tougher for people to want to believe journalist. The journal Ethical Challenges Posed by Online Media to Journalism: Case of The Zambian Watchdog states “The worry is having the story and not how the story was sourced. This argument is based on the principle that “the end justifies the means”. This is an approach that you don’t want to take when being a journalist and Glass kind of took those same steps.
In conclusion, there are a few other ways Glass could’ve dealt with this situation he was in. Personally, I would’ve looked at what the hardest part of writing my stories were and then asked one of my colleagues for advice on what I should do next. I would’ve then looked looked at my options and weighed the consequences of them all and made my decision based off of that. That would’ve put me in a better circumstance because I went through an ethical process before doing something I regret. As I read in the textbook, it is important that journalist be able to talk to their editors when facing tough stories or situations.
The one thing I learned the most form this movie is to always tell the truth and not deceive or fabricate stories. It will only lead me down a road of destruction and disgrace. The temporary fame isn’t worth it. Eventually you’ll get caught. Things are much better when you tell the truth no matter what. The consequences of not getting the story or getting a less enthusiastic story far outweigh the consequences of creating a mythical amazing story. It just means that you have to work harder next time and learn how to balance it all.
Conley, D. (2009). Media Law and Ethics: Intersection of The New York Times Code of Ethics and Cases. Conference Papers — National Communication Association, 3.
Chishala, F. C. (2015). Ethical Challenges Posed by Online Media to Journalism: Case of the Zambian Watchdog. Global Media Journal: African Edition, 9(1), 33-46.