Blog 2 Shattered Glass by Rebecca Kovacs

Shattered Glass is a true story about a young journalist, Stephen Glass who defied the ethics of journalism in order to produce articles that could be viewed as entertaining.  Being a good journalist is not about publishing stories that are interesting and entertaining but about following an ethical guideline to spread important and accurate news as a public service.  Throughout this video I observed two extremely important ethical values of journalism that Glass broke.  They were truth and accuracy, and accountability.  As we learned at the end of the movie, Stephen Glass had not just fabricated the Jukt Micronics’ hacker piece, but had made up multiple different articles.  He used fake email addresses, forged fake notes, and even went out of his way to create fake websites.  Glass’s actions clearly demonstrate a lack of honesty but even further than that, when he was caught he continued to build upon his lies rather than take accountability for his mistakes.

Based on the five core ethical principles of journalism (truth & accuracy, independence, fairness & impartiality, humanity, and accountability) (Society of Professional Journalism, 2015), the two that really stuck out to me when considering Stephen Glass’s actions were truth and accuracy and accountability.  According to the Ethical Journalism Network journalists cannot always guarantee truth, however striving for accuracy is important (Ethical Journalism Network, 2015).  Making sure all the facts that are given are relevant and have been checked is how journalists achieve accuracy in their writing.  It is obvious that Stephen Glass neglected to provide accurate facts and information for multiple stories that he covered.  Glass violated the accountability ethic as well.  In journalism, if a mistake or error is made one must correct them and our expressions of regret must be sincere not cynical (Ethical Journalism Network, 2015). Instead of taking responsibility for his actions after he was caught, he continued to build upon one lie by creating more.

Stephen Glass went against his duties as a journalist to provide meaningful and accurate information.  He cared more about his reputation as an entertaining journalist then he did about moral values.  For this particular situation, the only solution I see is to fire Glass, the same as Chuck Lane did.  This was not a one-time mistake, it happened multiple times.  Had it been a one-time error then I could understand giving Glass a second chance.  For me the hardest thing to wrap my head around is why Glass did not immediately take responsibility and admit to his mistakes after he was caught. If he had taken accountability for his unethical actions then maybe there could have been a possibility for him to practice journalism again.  Had I been in his situation I would have taken accountability for my actions.  Overall, I agree that firing Glass was the right thing to do.  There is no way to know that someone who is willing to go to such extremes to protect his image is capable of being trusted.

 

 

References:

Five Principles of Journalism – Media Ethics.” Ethical Journalism Network, ethicaljournalismnetwork.org/who-we-are/5-principles-of-journalism

“9Q5M-KMKT: SPJ Code of Ethics | Society of Professional Journalism Free Download & Streaming.” Internet Archive, archive.org/details/perma_cc_9Q5M-KMKT.

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