“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” (Glass; 60 Minuets) This was former New Republican journalist Stephen Glass, apologizing on national television for journalistic fraud in over a dozen stories during his time with the company. There is almost a bit of sympathy one could feel while reading that passage, and at the same time, a bit of a reprieve; “Is he really sorry?” That’s the scariest thing about trust, it can go in an instant and what Stephen fell into will take a lifetime to dig back up from, if even then.
It happens everyday on all kinds of scales; from high school essays to major publications, and the reality of it is, no matter what kind of barricade is made, it’ll still happen. In 2004 Dan Rather, longtime host of 60 Minuets, the same news publication that displayed Glass’ wrongdoings, was caught fabricating a story involving president George. W. Bush and a potential draft evasion. Rather was at the top of many journalistic charts and just like Glass, enjoyed the rush of it too much, leading to more and more lies before the eventual demise.
Glass fell into “a constant pressure to produce, “a deep desire to get into the paper,” and, especially, to make the front page, the ultimate, though fleeting, measure of a reporter’s worth.” (Shapiro; p. 3) He did so by any means necessary, as lies grew one onto another, backstories of fake notes, phone numbers, names, etc. all came packaged with it to withhold that deep desire to get onto the front page. Through manipulating fellow coworkers, he built trust that he could use in deceit and break journalistic ethics.
Lacking all moral integrity Glass took the easy route for the short run, and I feel as though he was never meant to be a journalist in the first place. I don’t think any can deny him having a creative mind, and one that could really be put to use; he just got caught up in the will to write real stories that he just shot himself in the foot.
“Corporate-owned media… not only should be founded on sound media ethics; they must be for their own good.” (Sounder; p. 2) There is a big difference between doing what is “ethically right” and “legally right”, and while although they seem like they should go hand in hand, this isn’t always the case. While it is argued as to whether or not newsrooms should have a direct code of ethics for which to act, something must be done in order to keep everything flowing soundly. We do not practice ethics just for the philosophical sake, but because at the end of the day, it is the right thing to do, almost more so in journalism than anything else. There is no room for the “legally right” when the product you are crafting is being sold and bought by people all over the nation as fact.
While a great film, watching “Shattered Glass” was like watching my greatest fear come to life, more so than failure in task; Stephen failed those who cared about him. I can’t necessarily say that I’ve learned anything new from the movie itself, but it really brings to life the notion that these things happen to journalists all over, and that any one of us can get caught up in trying to do just a little bit extra in order to climb the ladder. Regardless of its scale fabrication is just that, and there is no way out of it, but to come clean and hope for the best just as that videographer for the ice-boating video shown in class did.
Resources:
Lawrence Sounder (2010) A Free-market Model for Media Ethics: Adam Smith’s Looking Glass, Journal of Mass Media Ethics, 25:53–64
Ivor Shapiro (2006) Why They Lie: Probing the Explanations for Journalistic Cheating. Canadian Journal of Communication, 31(1), 261–266.