The New Republic, a distinguished magazine with a 90-year history publishing political and social commentary, never knew what was in-store once they hired a young Steven Glass. With three years under his belt at the magazine he became an essential and admired member of the team. He seemed to have a calling in journalistic reporting, somehow always finding himself in overly extraordinary and quirky situations.
But the way all avalanches take plight, Glass slowly found himself threading in tiny lies to make his stories more cohesive and attractive to the reader. From there, the addition of a made up quote, or even an entirely made up source seemed like the worst of it. It wasn’t until 1998 that Steven Glass’s greatest story of all time was exposed. Queue avalanche. Glass reported on 15-year-old hackers that dominated hacking technology in Silicone Valley, Jukt Micronics. The story was successful and unquestioned until someone from Forbes magazine had an inkling to follow up, and found zero evidence of a confrence taking place. As it turns out Glass fabricated 27 of his 41 articles published during his time at The New Republic. This incident exposed Glass for creating entire stories from scratch. He made up entire events, and sources, created fake emails, fake voicemails, fake venues, and needless to say, buried himself in a reporters fantasy land.
Like I said, one of Steven Glasses greatest stories of all time was of his scandal. Sure, he wrote a ton of successful stories (most of which were completly fabricated), but when he became a textbook version of violating reporter ethics is when he really had his claim to fame. An ethical issue at stake with this case is infact his infamy. Jack Kelley, Jayson Blair, Michael Finkel, and Ruth Shalit all share a deviant trait with Steven Glass which also inclined them to use their platforms to decieve millions of people in similar ways. I mention these particular figures because they are names that did not die with their indefinete suspensions. Infact, it turned out to be a really good career move.
Steven Glass wrote a novel on his mishap and became the subject of a very successful feature film, Shattered Glass. Journalist Samuel G. Freedman reacts to this type of unnecessary acknowledgement in his USA Today peice “Don’t reward deceitful writers”. It feels like a sense of glorification when someone becomes well known for doing an immoral act. By making movies and assigning headlines dedicated to deciteful journalists, we’re “turning our rapists into leading men”, Freedman says.
Although I agree with Freedman’s assertions I also understand the necessity of making an example out of these peculiar cases. For the purpose of teaching the public real life consequences of poor journalism, it is justified to perhaps write a book or create a film to show COMM 409 Ethics Students. However, it also does not sit well to glorify the greatest liar of all time for being the greatest liar of all time.
Furthermore, another ethical concern in the Glass scenario is the appeal to charm. Similar to NBC’s Brian Williams who had charm, status, catchy stories, and 12 awards under his belt, his coworkers naively trusted him. Trust is not a downfall, but as an editor or a fact-checker you have to treat every story like Pinocchio wrote it.
“The only think I think you can say in defense of The New Republic was that we were up against somebody, at the time who was really determined to deceive the magazine. And that is quite unusual”, says Lane of the Washington Post reporter. It is a very rare type of person that spends more time lying in circles and trying to decieve the fact checker rather than telling the truth, but it is important for the company to uphold their code of conduct and constantly enforce it.
From this exercise I have learned the important role of the company/distributor of the news. It is easy to blame the guilty person of lying, but it is also essential that the fact checkers are never sympathetic in their job and always uphold the highest standards for their journalists, even if they have been with the company for years. As for making poor journalists famous for their malicious work, I now understand the perspective of not wanting to glorify them for their wrong-doings but also making an example out of them for a greater purpose. More journalists will be better, and more ethic once learning the downfall of some of the United States greatest journalists.
“Don’t Reward Deceitful Writers”, Freedman G. Samuel. USA Today, LexisNexis
“Stephan Glass: I Lied For Esteem”, Steve Kroft’s Exclusive Interview with former reporter. May 07, 2003.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/stephen-glass-i-lied-for-esteem-07-05-2003/