Stephen Glass (reporter)

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Stephen Glass (born 1972) is a former American journalist, known for serial fraud in his articles. Over a three year period as a young rising star at the prestigious national magazine, The New Republic, from 1995 to 1998, he fabricated quotations, sources, and even entire events in articles he wrote for that magazine and others. He was fired when his deceptions came to light. His TNR career was dramatized in the film Shattered Glass. Glass fictionalized his own story in a 2003 novel whose protagonist is named "Stephen Aaron Glass".[1]

Contents

[edit] Early years

Stephen Randall Glass grew up in a Jewish family in the north Chicago suburb of Highland Park, Illinois.[2] He attended the University of Pennsylvania, where he was executive editor of the student newspaper, The Daily Pennsylvanian. His tenure coincided with a spectacular incident that befell the newspaper: an entire edition was stolen by students who objected to the newspaper's coverage and comments by one of its columnists.[3] In addition, the infamous Water buffalo incident occurred during his tenure, bringing national attention to Penn campus events. After graduation he joined The New Republic (TNR) in 1995 as an editorial assistant.[4] Very soon, the 23 year old advanced to writing features. While employed full time at TNR, he also wrote for other magazines including Policy Review, George, Rolling Stone, and Harper's and contributed to National Public Radio's (NPR) weekly hourlong program "This American Life," hosted by Ira Glass (no relation).

[edit] The New Republic scandal

By late 1996, Glass's reporting was repeatedly drawing outraged rebuttals from the subjects of his articles, which led to private skepticism from insiders at The New Republic. After the scandal broke, the magazine's majority owner and editor in chief, Martin Peretz, would admit that his wife had told him that she found Glass's stories incredible and had stopped reading them.[5] In December 1996, the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) was the target of a hostile Glass article called "Hazardous to Your Mental Health". CSPI wrote a letter to the editor and issued a press release pointing out inaccuracies, distortions, and possible plagiarism.[6][7] The organization Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) accused Glass of falsehoods in his March 1997 article "Don't You D.A.R.E.".[8] In May 1997, Joe Galli of the College Republican National Committee had a letter to the editor published accusing Glass of fabrications in "Spring Breakdown", his lurid tale of drinking and debauchery at the 1997 Conservative Political Action Conference. A June 1997 article called "Peddling Poppy" about a Hofstra University conference on George H. W. Bush drew a letter to the editor from Hofstra reciting Glass' errors.[8] The New Republic, however, stood by him. Editor Michael Kelly fired off an angry letter to CSPI calling them liars and demanding that they apologize to Glass.[2]

Glass was finally caught in May 1998, at which time he held the title of associate editor of The New Republic. The story that triggered his downfall appeared in the issue dated May 18, 1998. It was called "Hack Heaven" and concerned a supposed 15-year-old hacker who intruded into the computer network of a company called "Jukt Micronics", which allegedly then hired him as an information security consultant. As with several of Glass' previous stories, "Hack Heaven" depicted events that were almost cinematically vivid and told from a first person perspective, implying that Glass was there as the action took place. The article opened as follows:

Ian Restil, a 15-year-old computer hacker who looks like an even more adolescent version of Bill Gates, is throwing a tantrum. "I want more money. I want a Miata. I want a trip to Disney World. I want X-Men comic book #1. I want a lifetime subscription to Playboy - and throw in Penthouse. Show me the money! Show me the money!". . . .
Across the table, executives from a California software firm called Jukt Micronics are listening and trying ever so delicately to oblige. "Excuse me, sir", one of the suits says tentatively to the pimply teenager. "Excuse me. Pardon me for interrupting you, sir. We can arrange more money for you. . . ." [9]

Upon the publication of "Hack Heaven", Adam Penenberg, a reporter with Forbes, undertook to verify it. He found no evidence that Jukt Micronics or any of the people mentioned in the story even existed.[10] Penenberg and Forbes confronted TNR with this and Glass claimed to have been duped. Glass's boss, TNR editor Charles Lane, had Glass travel with him to Bethesda, Maryland to visit the Hyatt hotel where Restil had supposedly met with the Jukt Micronics executives and to the conference room where the hacker conference had supposedly been held. Despite Glass's assurances, Lane would discover that on the day of the alleged hacker conference, the conference room had been closed.[2] Afterwards, Lane dialed a Palo Alto number for Jukt Micronics provided by Glass and eventually had a phone conversation with a man who identified himself as George Sims, a Jukt executive. This was the first piece of evidence substantiating Glass's article. However, Lane found out from a passing remark by another TNR editor that Glass had a brother at Stanford University, which is in Palo Alto, the city where "Jukt Micronics" was allegedly located. Realizing that Glass' brother was posing as Sims, Lane immediately fired Glass.[11]

TNR subsequently determined that at least 27 of 41 stories written by Glass for the magazine contained fabricated material. Some of the 27, such as "Don't You D.A.R.E.", contained real reporting interwoven with fabricated quotations and incidents[12], while others, "Hack Heaven" among them, were completely made up.[4] In the process of creating the "Hack Heaven" article, Glass had gone to especially elaborate and assiduous lengths to thwart the discovery of his deception by TNR's fact checkers: creating a shell website[13] and voice mail account for Jukt Micronics; fabricating notes of story gathering; having fake business cards printed; and even composing editions of a fake hacker newsletter.[4] As for the balance of the 41 stories, editor Lane in an interview given for the 2005 DVD edition of the 2003 movie, Shattered Glass, said, "In fact, I'd bet lots of the stuff in those other fourteen is fake too. ... It's not like we're vouching for those fourteen, that they're true. They're probably not either." The magazines Rolling Stone, George, and Harper's also reexamined the reporting of his that they had published. Rolling Stone and Harper's found the material generally accurate yet maintained they had no way of verifying information because Glass had cited anonymous sources. George discovered that Glass fabricated quotations in a profile piece and apologized to the article's subject, Vernon Jordan, an adviser to then President Bill Clinton.

[edit] Since 1998

After being fired by The New Republic, Stephen Glass earned a law degree, magna cum laude, at Georgetown University Law Center. He then passed the New York State bar exam. At the time, there were reports that he was awaiting the character and fitness review that each applicant must pass.[14][15] Nothing further is publicly known of his quest to be admitted to practice law in the State of New York.

In 2003, Glass published a so-called "biographical novel", The Fabulist.[16] Glass sat for an interview with the weekly news program, 60 Minutes, timed to coincide with the release of his book.

Also in 2003, Glass briefly returned to journalism, writing an article about Canadian marijuana laws for Rolling Stone.[17] In October of that year came the feature film, Shattered Glass, directed by Billy Ray and starring Hayden Christensen as Glass and Peter Sarsgaard as Charles Lane. On November 7, Glass participated in a panel discussion on journalistic ethics at George Washington University, along with the editor who had hired him at The New Republic, Andrew Sullivan.[14]

One reviewer of The Fabulist commented, "The irony—we must have irony in a tale this tawdry—is that Mr. Glass is abundantly talented. He's funny and fluent and daring. In a parallel universe, I could imagine him becoming a perfectly respectable novelist—a prize-winner, perhaps, with a bit of luck."[18] The New Republic's literary editor, Leon Wieseltier, complained, "The creep is doing it again. Even when it comes to reckoning with his own sins, he is still incapable of nonfiction. The careerism of his repentance is repulsively consistent with the careerism of his crimes." [16]

The movie, appearing after newer scandals similar to the one it portrayed, occasioned critiques of the journalism industry itself by nationally prominent journalists such as Frank Rich and Mark Bowden.[19] It presented a stylized view of Glass' rise and fall.

In 2007, he was performing with a Los Angeles comedy troupe known as Un-Cabaret and was described by the director of Shattered Glass as being employed at a law firm, not necessarily as an attorney.[20] [21]

[edit] References

  1. ^ Glass, Stephen. 2003. The Fabulist. Simon and Schuster, 352 p. ISBN 0-7432-2712-3, p. 234.
  2. ^ a b c Bissinger, Buzz. "Shattered Glass". Vanity Fair, September 1998.
  3. ^ Hughes, Samuel. Pennsylvania Gazette. "Through a Glass Darkly", November/December 1998.
  4. ^ a b c CBS News. Stephen Glass interviewed by 60 Minutes, August 17, 2003.
  5. ^ Skinner, David. Weekly Standard. "Picking Up the Pieces", Oct. 31, 2003.
  6. ^ Center for Science in the Public Interest. Letter to the editor of The New Republic. The New Republic, January 8, 1997.
  7. ^ Center for Science in the Public Interest. New Republic Attack on CSPI Filled With Mistakes, Says CSPI Director, press release December 20, 1996.
  8. ^ a b Last, Jonathan. "Stopping Stephen Glass". The Weekly Standard, October 31, 2003. (movie review)
  9. ^ Glass, Stephen. “Washington Scene: Hack Heaven”, The New Republic, May 18, 1998
  10. ^ Penenberg, Adam L. Lies, damn lies, and fiction. Forbes, May 11, 1998.
  11. ^ Fresh Air, link to audio recording of interview with Charles Lane, November 17, 2003
  12. ^ Glass, Stephen. Letter of apology to D.A.R.E., January 25, 1999.
  13. ^ Fake "Jukt Micronics" page
  14. ^ a b Shafer, Jack. "Half a Glass: The incomplete contrition of serial liar Stephen Glass". Slate magazine, November 7, 2003.
  15. ^ Rowe, Douglas J. Liar understood stereotypes. The Age, November 25, 2003. (Article originally published by the Times Union (Albany, New York) November 20, 2003. Cited by Prof. Matthew Ehrlich in "Hollywood and journalistic truthtelling", Notre Dame Journal of Law, Ethics, and Public Policy, 2005, 19(2):519-539.)
  16. ^ a b Kirkpatrick, David D. "A History Of Lying Recounted As Fiction". The New York Times, May 7, 2003.
  17. ^ Glass, Stephen. "Canada's Pot Revolution". Rolling Stone, September 4, 2003.
  18. ^ Begley, Adam. Disgraced journalist's 'novel' is Janet Malcolm for Dummies. New York Observer, May 18, 2003.
  19. ^ Good, Howard. 2007. Journalism Ethics Goes to the Movies. Rowman and Littlefield. Chapter 2 (partial preview accessed at Google Books)
  20. ^ Vanity Fair. "Shattered Glass: Postscript", October 2007.
  21. ^ Un-Cabaret Talent

[edit] Further reading

  1. "A Day on the Streets", for The Daily Pennsylvanian, June 6, 1991
  2. “Mrs. Colehill Thanks God For Private Social Security”, June 1997, for Policy Review magazine. PDF format.
  3. “Probable Claus”, published January 6 & 13, 1997
  4. “Don't You D.A.R.E.”, published March 3, 1997
  5. “Writing on the Wall”, published March 24, 1997
  6. "Slavery Chic", published July 14 & 21, 1997
  7. “The Young and the Feckless”, published Sept. 15, 1997
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