Shattered Glass
Shattered Glass is a movie that was released in the year`2003 and exposed the events that unfolded during the scandal of Stephen Glass during his career as a journalist and a writer around 1998. Stephen Glass was an outgoing journalist who was admired by many during his journalism career. The New Republic hired him immediately after school, and that is where his career started. However, Glass was not the kind of journalist that people, including his employers. Most of the stories he covered and wrote were not real but were just fiction, and he could even come up with a character that did not even exist. He broke the code of ethics that are required to be observed by all journalists.
Stephen Glass failed to seek correct information and report as dictated by the code of ethics. The journalist and writer created fake stories and reported them to his listeners as real. He goes all the way to make up news based on his imagination and even features them in The New Republic magazine, which had hired him. The first story he writes about is titled ‘Springs Breakdown’ that talks about drugs, debauchery, and drinking at a Conventional political Action Conference, which brings doubt about its accuracy. Glass had his second story, which sparked his downfall in his career. He wrote about the story title ‘Hack Heaven’, where he covered the story of a teenager who, according to him, the boy managed to hack a company computer system of a company. The company, in this case, does not exist, and the investigators realize later that the company was made up with his brother, pausing as the owner. Glass went to the extent of creating a fake website under the name Jukt Micronics which is the name of the company he claims was hacked. All this information was not true, yet Glass presents it to his readers as real. There is no evidence on the hacker or anything to do with the whole hacking thing as investigate. Glass went a long way to deceive his employers and the public who read and watched his fabricated stories, which is highly unethical.
The young journalist also goes against the rule of accountability and transparency. When he is asked about the accuracy and the credibility of his story ‘Hack Heaven’, he does all he can to cover up the whole mess. People begin to question the truth of the facts in his sorry, which he fails to respond genuinely. Glass instead takes his employers in circles telling all lies and even fakes more information about the company. He does not accept that the story is made up and not real, but instead defends his works and finds more cunning ways of hiding the truth. By doing this, Stephen Glass lacks transparency, and he is not accountable in his career, which landed him into a mess in 1998.
Stephen Glass, who was once a respected and popular journalist turns out to be one of the biggest liars in the American history. His bad behavior of making up stories and personas was a major breach of a professional journalist’s requirements and code of ethics.