Responses to Shattered Glass

Choose one of the options below and post your response to your blog.

If you want to earn some extra credit or if you really liked the movie and would like to extend your experience with it, do more than one.

OPTION ONE: The Secret of His Success

Journalists are supposed to be good judges of character. That's why it's surprising that Stephen Glass managed to deceive his New Republic colleagues for so long. Take a look at the episodes below from the film and write a full paragraph about how his actions might have offered clues that he was not the model journalist he appeared to be.

1. At a staff meeting, Glass entertains his colleagues with a story about how he posed as a behavioral psychologist to investigate talk radio coverage of a Mike Tyson fight.
2. On a visit to his old high school, Glass tells a class of journalism students, "A great editor defends his writers. Against anyone. He stands up and fights for you."
3. When a colleague chides Glass for compromising his career by applying to law school, Glass explains that he has to apply to make his parents happy.
4. Glass offers to resign when it is discovered that he misreported a minor detail in a story about a hotel room orgy at a young conservatives convention.
5. After tearing apart an intern's story for poor reporting, Glass explains, "This is The New Republic, remember? Nothing slides here. If you don't have it cold, you don't turn it in. Ever."

OPTION TWO: The Editorial Process

Suppose you had been a fact-checker at The New Republic when Stephen Glass was on staff. Do you think you would have caught on to his deceptions? Consider these excerpts from these Glass articles that are mentioned in the film. What details if any do you think would need independent verification? How would you go about obtaining that verification? How often do you think reporters rely on details that a fact checker can't verify? To what extent must editors and fact-checkers simply trust their reporters to tell the truth?

1. One Chicago-area school for Santas featured a 144-page textbook that provided instruction on everything from going to the bathroom in a Santa suit to rules on how to touch children.
2. Western Union now has a "Stop the Cassini" hotline, 1-888-no-cassini, which forward anti-Cassini telegrams to the White House for $10 a pop ... and Las Vegas is even taking bets on whether the satellite will malfunction. The approximate odds before liftoff: 1 in 70.
3. Take Joel Carni, whose family business, Four Acres, is one of the nation's largest political novelty manufacturers. This summer, stores will be hit with Carni's newest product, the Monicondum.

OPTION THREE: Editorial Standards

As portrayed in the movie, Michael Kelly and Charles Lane differ somewhat in the ways that they provide editorial support to their writers. Consider these actions and assess whether you agree or disagree with the editor's actions. After you consider these episodes, think about what they teach us about the editor/write relationship and an editor's primary responsibilities. How far should an editor go in defending a writer? How tough should an editor be in holding writers to the highest standards? Was there some point, before the Forbes.com story perhaps, when either Kelly or Lane should have discovered how Glass was manipulating the editorial system?

1. When Kelly receives a letter charging that Glass fabricated his account of a hotel room orgy during a young conservatives convention, he asks Glass to gather his notes so they can respond. When he learns that Glass did misreport one detail--there was no mini-bar in the room, just a rented mini-fridge, according to Glass--Kelly sends him home, satisfied that the story is solid. But once Glass is gone, Kelly calls the hotel room to confirm that guests can rent a mini-fridge as Glass has claimed.
2. When the publisher forces everyone on staff to circle every comma in the last issue, so he can point out what he believes are mistakes, Kelly confronts him. "These people...deserve our thanks, not another one of your world-famous tantrums," he tells the publisher. "I would resign before I'd allow you to bully them like that again." Then, hanging up the phone, Kelly announces, "The Great Comma Debate is history."
3. After Lane and Glass spend hours in a conference call with Forbes, during which the facts in Glass' computer hacker story become steadily more and more dubious, Lane sends Glass back to his office and calls the Forbes editor privately to ask that they spare his reporter. "You guys have uncovered something that a troubled 25-year-old has done," he says. "He could be very hurt by what you guys publish." But when asked if he still stands by the story, Lane answers, off the record, "I'm looking into it. ..."
4. Finally convinced that Glass faked every shred of evidence for the facts her reported in his computer hacker story, Lane finds himself confronted by other staff members who feel it would be wrong to fire him. "He doctored his notes," Lane tells them, "He lied to his editor." But when they insist that Glass only lied out of panic and needs help, Lane backs down. Instead of firing him, he suspends Glass for two years.