Situation Definition:
The movie Shattered Glass is based off the failed career of Stephen Glass of The New Republic. During his time at the paper, Glass fabricated more than half of his stories that were posted, and he lied to his audience and his co-workers. The movie showed the success that Glass had while he was fabricating his stories as well as his failure when he was eventually found out.
Two primary issues with Glass’s fabrication is that he showed during his time as a journalist for The New Republic were that he didn’t have any remorse for what he was doing until he was caught and that when he was caught he didn’t take responsibility for anything. This shows powerful ethical messages.
Analysis:
Stephen Glass fabricated 27 of 41 stories that he had published during his time at The New Republic and made most of his stories entertaining for the readers of the paper. In a 60 Minutes interview with Glass, he spoke as to why he fabricated and continued his fabrications, “I loved the electricity of people liking my stories. I loved going to story conference meetings and telling people what my story was going to be and seeing the room excited. I wanted every story to be a home run.”
“He made up organizations and quotations. Sometimes, he made up entire articles. And to back it all up, he created fake notes, fake voicemails, fake faxes, even a fake Web site-whatever it took to deceive his editors, not to mention hundreds of thousands of readers.” (Spurlock 2016). This shows that it wasn’t like Glass didn’t know what he was doing, and he didn’t have any remorse as to what he was doing. He didn’t care about what he was doing, just as long as he had a successful story and he was getting recognition.
“But the author also points a stern finger of blame at workplace pressures: in the fictional “Glass’” first flirtation with fabrication, the celebrated but professionally untrained star pitches a story to his colleagues, fails to find reportable facts that live up to what was promised, then faces pressure from editors to provide more details—and, after that, more stories like it.” (Shapiro 2006). This shows Glass putting blame on his workplace environment and not taking responsibility for his actions and owning up to the fact that he lied and made up stories.
One part of the journalism ethics code is that it is up to the journalist that they don’t cause harm with the stories that they are putting out. Glass caused harm to the paper that he worked for by lying and fabricating more than half of his stories and putting the reputation of the paper at risk.
Conclusion:
Overall, Stephen Glass committed horrible and unethical acts. He ruined not only his reputation but also the reputation of his paper that he was working at. That reputation isn’t something that you just gain back easily, so he essentially ruined the paper’s reputation along with his own.
I would offer as a resolution that when it comes to his reputation. I believe that when it comes to him applying for jobs and such there should be more deliberation into hiring him for anything and when he publishes anything. He should also never be allowed anything to do with academics because what he says isn’t trustworthy anymore.
References:
SPURLOCK, J. (2016). Why Journalists Lie: The Troublesome Times for Janet Cooke, Stephen Glass, Jayson Blair, and Brian Williams. ETC: A Review of General Semantics, 73(1), 71–76. Retrieved from http://ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ufh&AN=125698524&site=ehost-live&scope=site
Shapiro, I. (2006). Why They Lie: Probing the Explanations for Journalistic Cheating. Canadian Journal of Communication, 31(1), 261–266. Retrieved from http://ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=20591083&site=ehost-live&scope=site