Situation:
The film “Shattered Glass” depicts a despicable true story of a reporter, Stephen Glass, who decided to fabricate a majority of his stories. Glass, who had been writer for The New Republic, decided that the best way to garner attention to his work was to make up his own.
The story of Glass brings up ethical questions that would make one wonder why he decided to fabricate his stories instead of ethically reporting, and why after caught, die he continue to lie instead of admitting that he committed these acts.
Analysis:
Glass was a pathological liar when it comes to his journalism work. After investigation from his former employer, it determined that he had fabricated portions of 27 of his 41 total stories. He committed this act for so long, but what had possessed to start in the first place?
In 2003, Glass told 60 Minutes, “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.” This constant need to impress caused Glass to feel like he must improve on his previous stories, no matter the cost.
Ivor Shapiro wrote in the Canadian Journal of Communicationthat Glass failed “to find reportable facts that live up to what was promised, then [faced] pressure from editors to provide more details—and, after that, more stories like it.” Shapiro theorized that the immense stress and scrutiny of the journalism world was the driving force behind his need to lie.
After one of his pieces had come under fire for questionable evidence, Glass dug himself deeper by continuing to lie. According to Jefferson Spurlock, “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.”
Even after being caught, Shapiro suggests that he was so “compulsively imaginative that he [was] surprised to discover that notes for his fabricated stories don’t exist.” There could have been a psychological issue with Glass that was compelling him to lie, but he could never overcome it.
Conclusion:
Glass lied for fame and to overcome the pressure of his field, but only honesty could have saved him. Had he been honest with his editors that he didn’t believe his stories were newsworthy, or admitted he was struggling under pressure, there could have been a more successful Glass.
However, he drove himself to fabrication, and his credibility will never recover for it.
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.
Shapiro, I. (2006). Why They Lie: Probing the Explanations for Journalistic Cheating. Canadian Journal of Communication, 31(1), 261–266. https://doi.org/10.22230/cjc.2006v31n1a1595