Stephen Glass, a journalist for The New Republic, fabricated many stories by making up quotes, characters and other small details. Another ethical problem he faced was whether or not to tell his editor and colleagues that he fabricated these stories. He decided to lie them, even though that is extremely unethical.
Glass decided to fabricate his stories because he thought it made them more interesting. This is not a reason to make up quotes, sources and other details because it is not considered news. Lying to an editor and other colleagues is never allowed. We have learned in class that a journalist can never lie to their fellow journalists and “lying” is only ever allowed during undercover reporting.
Mike Conway, a professor at Indiana University, wanted to conduct a study, in which he interviewed journalism students and other communications students that were more interested in the advertising and public relations fields. Conway wanted to figure out if students from non journalistic majors and students from journalistic majors shared the same ethical principles.
“When student responses are separated into the journalistic and non-journalistic groups and then compared at the start and end of their journalism school experience, both groups showed significant increases in levels of concern and suggested penalties for ethical violations during their time in school,” (Conway, 2008).
This shows that through schooling, journalism students are taught about ethics and should know how to follow them. Glass went to the University of Pennsylvania where he would’ve taken an ethics class.
In an article written by Jiyoon Han for the 2018 volume of the Journal of Media Ethics, she delves into the controversy of deception and whether it is a liability or if it’s an asset.
“Bok (1978) elaborated on the problems of intentionally misleading another person through deception and lying. She argued that when lies succeed, they add to the power of the liar while diminishing the power of the deceived,” (Han, 2018).
This is exactly what happened in Shattered Glass when Glass lied to his colleagues. He took the power away from them because they were being deceived by him. They fought for him against their own editor because they thought that the editor was being too harsh on Glass, all while not knowing that Glass had been lying and cheating the entire time.
I think the best thing to do if a journalist feels they need their articles to be more interesting is look at the event in a different way. Maybe instead of just covering the event, do a feature story on a specific person at the event. There is no need to fabricate quotes, people or details of an event. Glass should’ve just went to the events, wrote articles to the best of his ability with all truth and hoped that they would be successful. As for lying to his editor and his colleagues, Glass should have never done that. If you are in a situation where you made a mistake in an article, you must tell your editor about it and make sure your colleagues also know that you made a mistake. It puts everyone in a much better position if everyone in the newsroom is transparent about all of the issues surrounding their articles.
References
Conway, M. (2008). Ethics Gaps and Ethics Gains: Differences and Similarities in
Journalism Students’ Perceptions of Plagiarism and Fabrication. 1-34.
Jiyoon (Karen) Han, Minette Drumwright & Wongun Goo (2018) Native Advertising: Is
Deception an Asset or a Liability?, Journal of Media Ethics, 33:3, 102-119.