In the movie “Shattered Glass” the main character, Stephen Glass, is first presented as timid and shy but also has strong passion for journalism. As he works for a magazine, The New Republic, his stories entertain his coworkers, editors and the readers but Glass gets caught up in an ethical dilemma when people start to suspect he is lying in his stories. Two ethical messages that echo through the movie are whether or not these fabricated facts can be justified as morally right and if the repercussions on Glass from his editor are justified.
The five ethical principles that we’ve discussed in class come to mind when trying to make judgement on Glass and his actions through the movie. The first principle that applies is Aristotle’s golden mean. This principle is about the idea that virtues are on a spectrum and to be ethical and you have fall in the middle of the spectrum. The far left extreme of the spectrum is described as “corrupted by pleasure”. This is where Glass is. He fabricated his stories for the entertainment of his coworkers and his readers. He fed off of the laughs in meetings held at the round table and he fed off of the positivity that people would give back to him after reading his stories . In the book “Heroes and Scoundrels: The Image of the Journalist in Popular Culture (History of Communication)” by Matthew C Ehrlich & Joe Saltzman the authors mention that “popular culture implies that whatever the niceties of ethics codes, journalists can resort to whatever means are necessary to serve the higher end of promoting the public interest.” Glass overlooked his ethic codes for a bigger and more enticing purpose. Glass was on the extreme side of Aristotle’s spectrum because his dishonesty was for personal gain in his social life. Glass desperately wanted to be accepted and bent the truth and went against journalism ethics for that.
Another ethical principle that can be applied to the movie is Kant’s categorical imperative. Kant’s categorical imperative talks about doing what’s ethically right no matter what the consequences are. This applies to the controversy of whether Glass should have been fired or suspended by his editor for his fabricated stories. One of our in class slides said “we ought to make choices based on our duty.” The editor chose not to hide this ethical mishap and instead he took proper measures and suspended Glass from the magazine and issued a public apology. This takes Kant’s advice directly and the editor is being unbiased with his choice of repercussions on Glass.
This movie has taught me that no matter how tempting the reward is you cannot publish anything with false information. Providing something that is false not only hurts the author’s credibility but hurts the credibility of the organization you are representing. It is important for everyone in the journalism career to have some type of ethical training. Ethical training can begin at an early age in schools. Students should be taught “authorship attribution, importance of transparency, reviewer ethics, and showing students journal policies and the rationale behind those policies. This will develop students as aspiring scholars with good habits, knowledge of the boundaries, an understanding of the meaning and value of publishing in refereed journals, and prevent problematic manuscript submissions.” (Ha, 637-640) News publishers can also hold ethical meetings and seminars to give all new employees a baseline of what is falsifying information and what is ethically correct. “‘Journalists everywhere need to realize that they are part of something bigger than they’ll ever be individually … Being ethical is harder than even some seasoned professionals think—which is why we teach ethics in the first place.” (Bradley, 242-243)
Wilson, B. (2015). Media ethics at work: True stories from young professionals.Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, 92(1), 242-243. doi:http://dx.doi.org.ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/10.1177/1077699015569232b\
Ha, L. (2017). Pressure to publish, transparency and significant knowledge contribution. Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, 94(3), 637-640. doi:http://dx.doi.org.ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/10.1177/1077699017725035
