Situation Definition:
One of the major issues happening in the news industry today is “fake” news. Before “fake” news was so relevant in our society there was actual fake news happening. The movie, Shattered Glass, focuses on Stephen Glass who was truthfully a fake news journalist. Glass wrote stories not only for “The New Republic” in Washington D.C. but also for the “Rolling Stones.” It took until his 41stpaper for their editor and the news editors at Forbes to realize something was up.
During his time with “The New Republic”, Glass wrote about 41 papers and 27 of them were fabricated. Once he was caught in the act it still didn’t stop him from covering his tracks and lying more. He did not take himself accountable for his actions as a journalist in which you should. He continued to lie and even got other people involved in his scheme.
Analysis:
In the movie, The Shattered Glassyou can tell Stephen is highly liked by his coworkers. When he would present a story to the editor everyone would always laugh and praise him for how amusing and funny it was. They wanted to hear more and more and he would get so excited to add more to it. He was so in to the story that is was so hard not to believe. However, after every story he would always say how stupid they were and that he wouldn’t write about it. That was one of the reasons he would make up this bogus stories.
He loved the attention he got from his coworkers and the editor. One thing they did in the movie they would focus on Stephen after he was telling his stories. In the background you could hear everyone around him laughing and then others proceeding to other stories. It always showed Stephen with almost this little devious sort of smile. Almost like he was relieved no one questioned him on whether the story was truthfully fact or fiction. It took another company to question his article “Hack Heaven” until they realized he has been lying about tons of stories he wrote.
Now a journalist can technically not always tell the truth. You could get a story from someone and they could be straight lying to you. But, as a journalist you should at least use the facts you are given. But he couldn’t even do that because he didn’t even have any facts. It wasn’t even a real event in life.
Even after the fact that he got caught he was stilling lying to everyone. He created a fake website, fake email account and he even made his brother talk on the phone and act like the CEO of the company. At one point his editor, Chuck, was over the games he was playing so he asked him to take him to the hotel where the hackers event was held and he did it. He was still making things up if when the guy who worked there proved him wrong. Now not only is it not ethical to lie as a journalist but once you are caught you should just accept that fact.
You should always be accountable for you work you are putting out to the public. As a journalist you should also always take into consideration what other people are telling you. Open to constructive criticism. But when he got the criticism he still didn’t take it into consideration. He was way too deep into the story and was finally caught. He knew after that it was game over for him. The job he somewhat enjoyed and was helping him pay for law school would have been over and he just didn’t want to risk that.
Conclusion:
I think one thing that Stephen could have done to save his career was to just get actual real stories. All he had to do was go out and find stories like everyone else and put the time and work in. I think he also should have been honest from the start about it being a lie. He got caught but he kept going with it which I think made it worse for him in the long run.
I definitely took a lot out of this story as a journalism major. I know to keep my job I have to bring real hard cold facts and to be truthful with my audience and myself. That even though it is fun making up really extravagant stories that in the real world that’s not what you do. Sometimes you have to do the boring work to work your way up to the fun work.
References:
White, Aidan (2015, February, 19). The 5 Principles of Ethical Journalism. Retrieved from https://ethicaljournalismnetwork.org/who-we-are/5-principles-of-journalism