(no subject)
So, I am writing my senior sem paper on ethics in journalism, particularly lying in stories/falsifying information and plagiarism. We have to do a 12 minute presentation on our papers and I go tomorrow. I mention two writers in my paper, Jayson Blair (who was fired from the NY Times for falsifying information and making up stories) and Stephen Glass. Here is an excerpt since I am too lazy to give more info:
On May 1, 2003, a promising young writer by the name of Jayson Blair resigned from his position at The New York Times amidst a flurry of scandal. A story published ten days later revealed the circumstances under which he had resigned: his editors had found out that he had falsified stories, interviews, events, and other “facts” for his assignments. “I lied and I lied-and then I lied some more. I lied about where I had been, I lied about where I had found information, I lied about how I wrote the story. And these were no everyday little white lies-they were complete fantasies, embellished down to the tiniest detail” (1). He goes on to list the many other lies that he had told during the course of his career: from plane rides he had never been on, to railroad tracks he had only seen in books, to houses he had only seen in archived collections of the Times. He said “in the end-justifies-the-means environment I worked in, I had grown accustomed to lying. I told more than my share of lies and became as adept as anyone at getting away with it unquestioned and unscathed.”
In the end, however, his lies caught up with him. His editors found out what he had been doing, and his actions had several unforeseen results besides his own resignation: the resignation of two of the top editors at The Times, “created an unfairly large black eye for journalists in general, and was used by those with axes to grind against minorities to justify their opposition to affirmative actions. Some might hold me responsible for not foreseeing the results of my actions, but my behavior was first and foremost an act of self-destruction” (ix).
But Blair was certainly not the first to commit these acts. For instance, in 1998 an up-and-coming young writer by the name of Stephen Glass was fired from The New Republic under similar circumstances. Glass was well on his way to becoming an editor or one of the most successful writers at the Republic (he was earning a six-figure income at the time of the incident), but his duplicity led to one of the greatest journalistic scandals of our time and landed him in the spotlight of the news world, but on the receiving end rather than the reporting end that he so desired. In a letter to their readers in June 1998, the New Republic formally announced their findings in an investigation of Glass, concluding that he had falsified some information in more than twenty stories, and had completely fabricated at least three of those stories (8-9).
In a 2003 60 Minutes interview conducted by Steve Kroft, Glass detailed his downward spiral of lying to the nation, saying that “the general trend of the stories is that they started out with a few made up details and quotes. And granted a few too many, of course. But a few. And then they progressed into stories that were completely fabricated. Just completely made up out of whole cloth.” He went on to say that “I remember thinking, ‘If I just had the exact quote that I wanted to make it work, it would be perfect.’ And I wrote something on my computer, and then I looked at it, and I let it stand. And then it ran in the magazine and I saw it. And I said to myself what I said every time those stories ran, ‘You must stop. You must stop.’ But I didn’t.” He said that he loved the “electricity” he felt when people liked his story and loved going to meetings and seeing people excited about his story ideas.
So anyway, for the presentation, I decided I should show a clip from the movie "Shattered Glass" that tells the story of Stephen Glass. And can I just say how totally amazing it was? I usually can't stand Hayden Christensen (Aniken in Star Wars, just in case you don't know who he is... the "I killed them, I killed them all" guy... TERRIBLE in that movie). But he was great in this movie. And Peter Sarsgaard is freaking amazing. GREAT movie, especially for people interested in this kind of thing. I think I just found something to add to my Christmas list, lol.
On May 1, 2003, a promising young writer by the name of Jayson Blair resigned from his position at The New York Times amidst a flurry of scandal. A story published ten days later revealed the circumstances under which he had resigned: his editors had found out that he had falsified stories, interviews, events, and other “facts” for his assignments. “I lied and I lied-and then I lied some more. I lied about where I had been, I lied about where I had found information, I lied about how I wrote the story. And these were no everyday little white lies-they were complete fantasies, embellished down to the tiniest detail” (1). He goes on to list the many other lies that he had told during the course of his career: from plane rides he had never been on, to railroad tracks he had only seen in books, to houses he had only seen in archived collections of the Times. He said “in the end-justifies-the-means environment I worked in, I had grown accustomed to lying. I told more than my share of lies and became as adept as anyone at getting away with it unquestioned and unscathed.”
In the end, however, his lies caught up with him. His editors found out what he had been doing, and his actions had several unforeseen results besides his own resignation: the resignation of two of the top editors at The Times, “created an unfairly large black eye for journalists in general, and was used by those with axes to grind against minorities to justify their opposition to affirmative actions. Some might hold me responsible for not foreseeing the results of my actions, but my behavior was first and foremost an act of self-destruction” (ix).
But Blair was certainly not the first to commit these acts. For instance, in 1998 an up-and-coming young writer by the name of Stephen Glass was fired from The New Republic under similar circumstances. Glass was well on his way to becoming an editor or one of the most successful writers at the Republic (he was earning a six-figure income at the time of the incident), but his duplicity led to one of the greatest journalistic scandals of our time and landed him in the spotlight of the news world, but on the receiving end rather than the reporting end that he so desired. In a letter to their readers in June 1998, the New Republic formally announced their findings in an investigation of Glass, concluding that he had falsified some information in more than twenty stories, and had completely fabricated at least three of those stories (8-9).
In a 2003 60 Minutes interview conducted by Steve Kroft, Glass detailed his downward spiral of lying to the nation, saying that “the general trend of the stories is that they started out with a few made up details and quotes. And granted a few too many, of course. But a few. And then they progressed into stories that were completely fabricated. Just completely made up out of whole cloth.” He went on to say that “I remember thinking, ‘If I just had the exact quote that I wanted to make it work, it would be perfect.’ And I wrote something on my computer, and then I looked at it, and I let it stand. And then it ran in the magazine and I saw it. And I said to myself what I said every time those stories ran, ‘You must stop. You must stop.’ But I didn’t.” He said that he loved the “electricity” he felt when people liked his story and loved going to meetings and seeing people excited about his story ideas.
So anyway, for the presentation, I decided I should show a clip from the movie "Shattered Glass" that tells the story of Stephen Glass. And can I just say how totally amazing it was? I usually can't stand Hayden Christensen (Aniken in Star Wars, just in case you don't know who he is... the "I killed them, I killed them all" guy... TERRIBLE in that movie). But he was great in this movie. And Peter Sarsgaard is freaking amazing. GREAT movie, especially for people interested in this kind of thing. I think I just found something to add to my Christmas list, lol.