Part 1: Situation Definition
The movie Shattered Glass is centered around Stephen Glass and his downfall as a journalist in the late 90’s. Glass fabricated 27 of his 41 stories while working as a writer at the New Republic. The first topic that demonstrates how Glass was an unethical reporter is how he utilized disinformation. Disinformation is information that is purposely written incorrectly and with evil intentions. This often connects to fake news in the media, a prominent issue in our country today. Disinformation is a tactic that has been used by unethical journalists for decades.
The second topic that shows Glass’s unethical writing habits is deception. Deception is sending messages intended to “make others believe what we ourselves do not believe”. These messages can be conveyed by fabrication. For example, undercover cover reporting, fabrication, and use of hidden cameras are all ways journalists decept their readers. Stephen Glass is a prime example of unethical journalists and how being unethical can lead a person to be extremely unsuccessful in the world of media.
Part 2: Analysis
The first main issue with Stephen Glass is that fabricated his work. Fabrication is when writers do things such as “…creating sources and embellishing stories to making quotes sound different from what was actually said” (Krueger). During his time working at the New Republic, Glass used all of these unethical tactics which led to him being fired. Glass fabricated his stories to make his readers believe what he knew was not true. He wanted to further his career and become a prominent writer. But, his unethical actions to do so led him to be a failure.
Stephen Glass also used deception to further his career. Glass lied tremendously in his whereabouts, notes, and writing pieces for the New Republic, which is how he deceived his readers. He lied so well and used many other lies to back those lies to make them seem true. For example, in the film Shattered Glass, one scene that demonstrated his deception was when he lied in his notes about where a gamers strike was. He also lied about where the people he spoke to went to eat after. It was not until his boss, Chuck Lane, went with Glass to where he supposedly took the notes and found out that everything he wrote about was untrue.
Glass was able to deceive his audience, co-workers, and even the editors for the New Republic. This was due to gained respect and trust that he had from his peers. Prior to being fired, Glass wrote truthful pieces as a journalist. When the pressure of writing started to get to him, that is when the lies started to swarm him, his pieces, and eventually his audience. His audience believed his lies because he had never lied before, and even when he was lying, he made it believable in addition to having a trusting audience.
Glass also bluffed his sources in order to fabricate and deceive his audience. Throughout the movie, whenever someone asked him about his work, he would also respond with the phrase “it’s in my notes”. This was him bluffing his sources because he had no real sources towards the end of his career.
Something Glass did not have in his work was misinformation. Misinformation is information that is wrong but because it was an accident or a mistake. No lie Glass made was a mistake. He had evil intentions of deceiving his readers with a plethora of lies upon lies to further his career. This is why Stephen Glass was an unethical journalist.
Part 3: Conclusion
All in all, Stephen Glass manipulated his journalistic audience into thinking he was telling the truth. Glass fabricated his work and deceived his readers in many ways, including deceiving his co-workers and editors at the New Republic. A possible solution for his actions could have been if he knew the consequences to their full extent before he committed these unethical actions. If he knew them, there could have been a chance of him not lying at all or as much as he did. Another possible solution could have been if the New Republic gave him another chance at being a journalist to see if he would still lie or not, especially after knowing he could get fired because of it.
A lesson I have learned is that the number one thing a journalist should not be is unethical. A journalist should never make assumptions, truth truthful sources to make up their own story, and should never lie to the editors. Journalism is about being ethical and pursuing the truth.
Part 4: References
Krueger, V. (2016, August 30). 4 guidelines to avoid fabrication in your news coverage.
Retrieved from
https://www.poynter.org/educators-students/2016/4-guidelines-to-avoid-fabricatio
Lionsgate. (2003). Shattered Glass.
Mahon, James Edwin. (2015). The Definition of Lying and Deception. Retrieved from