Situation Definition:
In the film, “Shattered Glass,” young journalist Stephen Glass climbs his way to the top of his field by telling lies to fabricate incredible stories. Glass was the youngest journalist at The New Republic, an esteemed newspaper based out of the nation’s capital. Throughout his career, Glass would deceive his colleagues and the audience ultimately leading to a story that was shrouded in fake news and led to his demise. Fake news and the deception of co-workers and readers are two of the worst ethical decisions a journalist can make, yet Glass was so confident in his ability to trick those around him that he falsified information in over half his stories. As his popularity soared, Glass felt the pressure to create even more sensational stories, and bit off more than he could chew with a piece about a teenage hacker who allegedly had a big score involving a software company. Ultimately, the movie served as a great example of just how bad the consequences can get with unethical actions in the world of journalism.
Analysis:
Diving into his first ethical error, Glass became comfortable with the idea of deceiving his colleagues and audience. From the start of the film, Glass is seen receiving praise for his accomplishments such as freelancing for world famous magazines like Rolling Stone, and even for the work he produced for The New Republic. The approval Glass received for the milestones he was reaching and the nature of his writing left him craving more, and only convinced him further that his ways of deception were working. However, as Glass continued to lie, the excuses began to add up, and he would start to fall back on irresponsible claims of leaving his notes at home, or offering up his classic line, “are you mad at me?” Not only is this type of behavior unprofessional, but it also breaks a number of ethical codes. From just one story alone, Glass lost his credibility to the American audience, lost the trust of fellow and former colleagues, and bluffed a source leading to his rightful termination. Three years after his deceitful reveal, the School of Communication and Information from the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, conducted a study to investigate the motives behind journalists’ desire to deceive. Twenty journalists were interviewed in depth with hopes to extract hidden feelings, attitudes, and beliefs that subconsciously led to dishonesty in stories, and the results were incredible. Fourteen of the 20 journalists said they had used deception in their work, and for the six that didn’t, they all named someone they worked alongside who had. According to the author of the study, Seow Ting Lee, “There is a clear understanding that deception is morally wrong, even among those who believe deception is acceptable in some situations. The journalists’ vocabulary is redolent of situational ethics” (Lee, 2002, p. 101). In Glass’s case, he knew what he was doing was morally wrong, but his ability to wriggle out of confrontations with his editors and success in his field altered his mindset regarding deception. To Glass, deception wasn’t something that was acceptable in some situations, it became his norm.
According to Dr. Z’s definition, fake news is false information purposefully produced and circulated, in many cases on social media, to deceive the audience and manipulate public opinions for political or financial gain. In “Shattered Glass,” Steven Glass went well out of his way to ensure that his stories, driven mostly by fake news, would receive plenty of attention. The first reference to Glass playing with fire involves a story about alcohol and prostitutes at the Republican young people convention. Glass initially accused the convention-goers of stealing alcohol out of the hotel mini fridges, and getting drunk. However, as the story began to gain traction, the hotel manager contacted Glass’s editor to inform him that were in fact no food or beverages in the hotel fridges at all. While the film portrays this incident as just a simple mistake, it only foreshadowed greater pieces of fake news that were yet to come. For the story that ultimately got him fired, Glass falsified an incredible amount of information, and failed to keep his trail of fake news afloat. Glass wrote of teenage hacker who was offered a million-dollar contract from a software company at a hotel convention. To accommodate his lies, Glass created a phony website for the fake company, fake contact information for characters in the story, and would say he had to “check his notes” anytime he was confronted for fact-checking. As the story rose in popularity, so did the investigative work of his own and other newspaper organizations leading to the reveal of even more fake news. The hotel in which the conference took place in knew nothing of the story, and the room in which the teenager supposedly signed the contract in was not nearly big enough to accommodate the amount of people Glass described were there. With everything on the table, it became evident Glass had developed a story embedded with fake news, and deceived his colleagues and his audience despite his claims that the story was truthful. According to scholar, Tiago Quintani, the implications of fake news can be far worse than most people imagine. “Fake news will have a destructive impact on citizens’ trust in the news in general,” Quintani said. “This will purportedly lead to a process that is more one of discrediting journalism itself, inasmuch as distrust could then spread to the product of accredited journalistic work.” If more journalists like Glass come to light, we could be spend more time questioning the news rather than processing it.
Conclusion:
If I were in his shoes, the smartest move would have been to come clean as soon as possible. Glass reached one of the highest points a journalist could hope for and at such a young age. With that being said, although his stories involved fake news and deception, he was a talented writer. I believe he had the ability to start from a completely fresh slate and use his writing skill and savvy to still have a successful career. If Glass did come clean instead of being exposed for lying, the consequences still would have been harsh. I would predict that he still would have been terminated, but Glass could have had the opportunity to start elsewhere and attempt to rebuild his credibility and reputation. Instead, Glass ran with his story of lies as far as it would take him, and his crumble became national news. After viewing “Shattered Glass,” I would admit I definitely learned a very valuable lesson regarding ethical decision making in journalism. Creating fake news and deceiving those around you hold incredible weight, especially in this field, and I learned it’s better to be truthful and accept your mistakes rather than lie.
References:
Lee, S. T. (2005). Predicting Tolerance of Journalistic Deception. Journal of Mass Media Ethics, 20(1), 22–42. https://doi-org.ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/10.1207/s15327728jmme2001_3
Quintani, T. L., Silva, M. T. da, & Lapa, T. (2019). Fake news and its impact on trust in the news. Using the Portuguese case to establish lines of differentiation. Communication & Society, 32(3), 17–33. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com.ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=136937717&site=ehost-live&scope=site