At the age of 25, Stephen Glass was one of the top journalists at The New Republic. Every story he produced was a hit amount his viewers. Stephen Glass once shared that he “loved the electricity of people liking my stories. I loved going to story conference meetings and telling people what my story was going to be, and seeing the room excited. I wanted every story to be a home run.” After some time, it came out the Glass had been fabricating most of the stories he had written (Jefferson Spurlock, 2016).
Everything Stephen Glass had done was wrong, but the two things that stood out to me the most were the times he made up the story completely and made fake websites or faxes to go along with them. Steve Kroft (2003) said, “He made up organizations and quotations. Sometimes, he made up entire articles. And to back it all up, he created fake notes, fake voicemails, fake faxes, even a fake Website-whatever it took to deceive his editors, not to mention hundreds of thousands of readers” (p. 1).
I don’t think Stephen Glass had the intentions of lying in every article he wrote. I believe he fabricated some information in one article in order to “spice it up” and got a big enough reaction to the story that he continued on the trend. Clearly, leading to the demise of his career. One thing he showed a perfect example of was deception. He tricked his readers into believing things that were completely false and untrue. One of the biggest things in journalism is to never deceive your audience or colleagues.
Another issue was all of the fabrication within his pieces. As a journalist, viewers trust us to give them true and factual information. It is our job to inform the public on current issues. The fact that he went to the extent of making fake websites, faxes, notes and more in order to prove his story is absurd. He is the prime example of why people do not trust journalists and claim we all produce “fake news.” It is important to have readers trust you.
Today many journalists follow the guidelines of The Society of Professional journalists. Although these rules regarding ethics are in place, people argue whether they’re actually effective or not. I feel as if there are many flaws exist within the entire process that need to be addressed. Although there was someone to fact check his work, Steven Glass was still able to maneuver his way around this and get his work published.
Dianna Conley (2009) states, “Clifford Christians (1985-86) wrote about the increasing prevalence of ethics codes, but that they are not usually effective. He argued that codes fail because of a lack of consequences for breaking ethics codes. Deni Elliott-Boyle (1985-86) argued for specific ethics codes that are enforced by an organization to create an ethical media. The effectiveness of ethics codes was also discussed by Boeyink (1995) through in-depth interviews with journalists. One journalist knew that their organization had a code of ethics but acknowledged it was not used. The second journalist credited managerial encouragement of ethical actions while the third journalist mentioned their newspaper was in the process of creating an ethics code. All of the journalists admitted that codes of ethics were not specifically consulted when an ethical dilemma arises” (p. 7).
Leon Wieseltier had been serving as the literary editor for The New Republic when all of this had happened. He said he had never suspected the articles were untrue, but he always seemed to come up with stories that seemed to good to be true. “Everything around him turned out to be incredibly vivid or zany or in some other way memorable,” says Wieselteir. “And at the meetings, we used to wait for Steve’s turn, so that he could report on his next caper. We got really suckered” (Steve Kroft, 2003).
I believe Stephen Glass deserved everything he got. His is one of the main reasons as to why people think they can’t trust journalists which makes all our jobs so much harder. His acts were selfish and completely wrong. No amount of fame is worth the end result he got. In order to fix or prevent something like this from happening fact checking needs to be taken more seriously. Clearly if Stephen was able to find his way around it, others could also.
Gail Shaltz (2004) states, “They lie to protect themselves, look good, gain financially or socially and avoid punishment.” She continues on to say “Lying often gets worse with the passage of time. When you get away with a lie it often implies you to continue your deceptions. Also, liars often find themselves perpetrating more untruths to cover themselves” (p. 1).
As mentioned earlier, I believe this is what happened with Stephen Glass. His one white lie turned into a web of lies he was unable to get out of. This is why classes such as Com409 are so important for upcoming journalists to take. People need to be aware of how powerful their word and work truly are, and how lying within your story for more viewers won’t help you in the long run. He created the fake sources in order to avoid punishment, as Shaltz states above, but he was still caught.
Stories such as the one about Stephen Glass has truly opened my eyes to how important it is so be honest in journalism. If I was the person in charge at The New Republic I would have fired him immediately and would have gotten rid of every piece he had ever written. Stephen Glass deserves all of the backlash he has received and should be ashamed of himself.
References:
Conley, D. (n.d.). Media Law and Ethics: Intersection of The New York Times Code of Ethics and Cases.
Kroft , S. (2003, August 15). Stephen Glass: I Lied For Esteem. Retrieved February 14, 2018, from https://www.cbsnews.com/news/stephen-glass-i-lied-for-esteem-07-05-2003/
Saltz, G. (2004, January 31). Why people lie – and how to tell if they are. Retrieved February 14, 2018, from https://www.today.com/health/why-people-lie-how-tell-if-they-are-2D80554952
Spurlock, J. (n.d.). Why Journalists Lie: The Troublesome Times For Janet Cooke, Stephen Glass, Jayson Blair, and Brian Williams . Director of the Hall School of Journalism and Communication at Troy University in Alabama.