Blog #2: Shattered Glass
When people talk about ethical issues happening in our life, the first thing we consider to analyze is the “Right or Wrong” answer to the issue. Generally, people won’t get puzzled while dealing with those “extreme good or bad concepts.” Instead, ethical decision and analysis are usually made when things don’t work as how it appears to be. The movie “Shattered Glass” and our main character Mr. Glass is a great example.
Who could imagine such a gentle young man praising colleagues all day would do integrities on his work? Who could imagine the man who is most carefully dealing with his words would continuously make fake news as high as 27 out of 41? “Never judge a book by its cover.” The articles people love can finally appear to be misleading and fabricated. The “most welcomed” man among colleagues can finally become the symbol of deception. Stephen Glass’s downfall and his no longer being trusted can be explained by these two ethical issues happening on him. Deception on people and misleading on audiences not only make him lose his career responsibility, but also take away people’s sincerity and trust on him.
Just as Jack Gould mentioned in his “Resists Pressures to Pick Coast Winner: Early C.B.S. Report Is Found Misleading” article, when news reporter brings out misleading information to the audiences, the situation would become irreversible. Just as the C.B.S.’s status at that time, it truly influences the entire figure when the issue happens. (Gould, 1964) Stephen Glass obviously didn’t think over this one. What he only believed in during his age was being popular as an editor of New Republics and in order to reach this spot, he could do whatever he can, even rumoring on others with things they never did.
However, being a journalist, no matter when and where, the first value and principle to follow is to show truth to the audiences. When reading Richard Pepez Pena’s article “Web Sites That Dig for News Rise as Community Watchdogs”, it draws me back to the situation of few countries’ news media system during a specific age, such as China after the second World War, small Europe countries during the war or North Korea during these centuries. They all have one thing in similar that they use journalist’s words to advocate their own opinions and make a misleading effect on everyone. Just as Pena described in his article, “watchdog” is the most symbolized representation of misleading issue in journalism. (Pena, 2008) Such issue directly go against journalists’ belief and is a great ethical problem.
Throughout the misleading effect, another derivative issue would come out as deception. Clearly, Stephen Glass treated on everyone and obviously deceived on his work. Though it brought him the pains at last, we could still figure out that the deception issue could be directly related to the person himself and the way he considered problems. Stephen Glass chose to be the deceiving one and he must meet with the pay that he would be blamed and caught. Not even being a professional journalist, such issue should even never happen on us being a ordinary person.
I believe the two issues happening on Stephen Glass can be strongly related to each other and cannot be easily found by others on a person himself. The only solution to these should be a person’s duty responsibility and sense of honor. If I were in his spot, I would never do such things. Even if I did that, I would choose to step back as soon as I can.
References
RICHARD, P. P. (2008, Nov 18). Web sites that dig for news rise as community watchdogs. New York Times (1923-Current File) Retrieved from http://ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/login?url=https://search-proquest-com.ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/docview/897163432?accountid=13158
By, J. G. (1964, Jun 04). Resists pressures to pick coast winner. New York Times (1923-Current File) Retrieved from http://ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/login?url=https://search-proquest-com.ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/docview/115826751?accountid=13158