Part 1. Situation Definition
In the movie, Shattered Glass, Stephen Glass works at the New Republic. He reports about these unique stories. However, he has completely made up his stories and he ends up getting fired from the New Republic.
Glass displayed two ethical messages to the world. He displayed fabrication and deception. According to the University of Kansas, fabrication is, “Unauthorized alteration or invention of any information or citation in an academic exercise.” Stephen displayed this while working at the New Republic. According to the Los Angles Times, Glass fabricated 27 pieces in his career. Those pieces led him to get fired.
The second ethical message Glass presented was deception. According to Merriam-Webster, deception is “the act of causing someone to accept as true or valid what is false or invalid.” Glass tricked people that worked at the paper with him and audience that his stories were true. By knowing the ways around the fact checkers and his charming personality, Glass had deceived most people.
Part 2. Analysis
Stephen Glass simply used fabrication and deception so that he could please himself and the people around him. According to Spurlock and Jefferson (2006), their article summarized that Glass loved when people loved his stories, he wanted every story to be a home run (p. 73). By wanting everyone to like him, Glass chose to ignore the ethical value of integrity and honesty to his audience and his co-workers.
Glass decided to lie and deceive people instead of writing his stories ethically. After Glass was caught, he lost his credibility. According to Conley (2009), summarized that journalists must have a balanced legal and ethical principles to create a credible media (p. 3). When Glass was not being honest, he ultimately made the New Republic a non-credible source.
Having a credible media will gain trust from the its audience. Having legal and ethical principles are important because of the media’s role in the democracy (Conley, p. 3). Without some sort of trust and rules, media outlets could post stories that are completely false and people would not know what’s true and what’s not true.
When people start not telling the truth, lies continue to build. “When you get away with a lie it often impels you to continue your deceptions” (Spurlock & Jefferson, p. 72). Glass started to lie. Once he started, he could not stop until he was caught. Social acceptance and self-esteem is two factors of why Glass lied (Spurlock & Jefferson, p. 72). Glass lied about his stories to everyone to make himself look good and to get a reaction out of people.
When I face a situation where I can lie to not get in trouble or to better myself in front of others I try to way the outcomes. If I do not get caught in the lie, my life is easier and I look good but I do have some guilt. However, if I did get caught in that lie, I lose trust from my peers, I get embarrassed, and then I have to work a lot harder to gain their trust back or I can never gain trust back and I am out of luck.
Part 3. Conclusion
I have learned a lot by the mistakes that Stephen Glass made. The big lesson I learned was how important credibility is to media outlets. I know I would not want to read a media outlet if I found out someone working there was making up stories and posting them. However, if I was in Stephen Glass’s place I would have be really embarrassed. I would have apologized to the New Republic, my co-workers, and my audience for not giving them credible stories. Also, I would have pointed that it was only me not telling the truth, that the New Republic is a good media outlet and I was the problem and not the outlet as a whole.
Part 4. References
Conley, D. (2009). Media Law and Ethics: Intersection of The New York Times Code of Ethics and Cases. Conference Papers–National Communication Association. http://web.a.ebscohost.com
Hiltzik, M. (2015, Dec. 15). Column: Stephen Glass is still retracting his fabricated stories — 18 years later. Los Angles Times. Retrieved February 13, 2020 from https://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-mh-stephen-glass-is-still-retracting-20151215-column.html
Merriam-Webster. (n.d.). Deception. In Merriam-Webster.com dictionary. Retrieved February 13, 2020 from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/deception
The University of Kansas. (n.d.). Plagiarism and Fabrication Policies. Retrieved February 13, 2020 from http://journalism.ku.edu/plagiarism-and-fabrication-policies
Spurlock, Jefferson. (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. http://web.a.ebscohost.com