In the movie, Shattered Glass, viewers were swooped in by Glass’s amicable presence and intriguing stories. They were then derailed after realizing the amount of fabrication Glass put into his pieces. One ethical issue was that Glass fabricated many of his sources in his stories.
A second ethical issue is that Glass lied to his Editor in Chief when being under confrontation about certain hiccups in his stories. These two ethical dilemmas carried out by Glass open up a can of worms for the rest of his career and life.
We first must take a look at the ethical issue of fabricating sources in his pieces. We must ask ourselves why Glass did this. Glass may have felt threatened by his coworkers and competitors in the journalism industry. He may have felt the need to come up with thrilling stories just to hold his own and make a big name for himself while being so young at the time.
Glass’s parents could have also been a factor when looking back at his fabricating tendencies. In the movie it is evident that Glass’s parents are very hard on him. He portrays this in the scene where his co-workers find a letter from law schools indicating his acceptance into their program. He explains that even if he wanted to throw the letters away, he can’t because there is no other option of not going to law school. Glass makes a comment that writing for The New Republic isn’t prestigious enough for his parents’ tastes.
According to California Judge, Richard A. Honn, Glass’s parents played a significant role in his downward spiral. “His parents pressured him to succeed, hoped he’d go to medical school and disapproved of his journalism career. After a visit home in 1995, Glass ‘felt he had to find a way around this problem,’” (Moos, 2011).
Another reason why Glass may have committed the ethical crimes he had, is for pure attention. Once he fabricated his first piece, and it received the glamorous attention he wished, Glass was hooked. He ran on the adrenaline that was a product of his thirst for views and readership of his stories.
Just as Glass was thirst driven for excitement, a similar case was also heavily click bate and view driven. The Columbia Journalism Review explains the ethical gray area associated with Texas Monthly’s EIC and his partnership with Bumble for one of Texas Monthly’s issues. Texas monthly EIC, Tim Taliaferro, addressed his editorial staff that the magazine would be partnering with the dating app, Bumble, in which the app’s founder Whitney Herd would appear on the cover of the issue. The utilization of paid social media would be put into effect to promote the story.
“Taliaferro later told staff members that Bumble had agreed to spend between $25,000 and $30,000 on paid social media promotion of the story if Herd appeared on the cover,” explained the Columbia Journalism Review (Neason, 2018). A staff member of the CJR expressed their concern over the matter. “It was such a clear violation of one of journalism’s most fundamental ethical guidelines,” (Neason, 2018).
In both instances, Glass and Texas Monthly were hungry for page views and high readership. They both violated ethical grounds in separate ways, Glass using fabrication, and Taliaferro making unethical deals with social media companies.
Ethical issues in these cases include lying to colleagues, their audience, and their own selves. Credibility is destroyed within Glass and with that, it is extremely hard to rebuild the trust you first established with your co-workers, friends, and national audience.
To avoid this problem, I believe journalists need to think of creative ways to tell their story in a truthful manner. They must also look back and analyze how they have been raised and what their morals are. Morals are established early on in a child’s life, and so I believe it is the parents’ role to make sure they are raising their children with the best ethical morals possible.
However, once the damage is done you cannot go back and undo it. If I were Glass, I would begin to rebuild my reputation immediately. I would issue apologies personally to my colleagues and readers. If Glass ever writes again, he must be truthful in everything he says. Once that is fact checked and reads true, he may be able to obtain back the trust he destroyed.
Works Cited
Moos, J. (2011, December 8). Why Stephen Glass Fabricated (It Was His Parents’ Fault).
Retrieved from https://www.poynter.org/news/why-stephen-glass-fabricated-it-was- his-parents-fault
Neason, A. (2018, January 26). Texas Monthly EIC Wades into an Ethical Gray Zone.
Retrieved from https://www.cjr.org/business_of_news/texas-monthly-bumble.php