Essay about Stephen Glass

📌Category: Articles
📌Words: 985
📌Pages: 4
📌Published: 23 June 2021

Stephen Glass is a talented writer who used his imagination to create captivating news stories, but while doing so, he was dishonest. As a journalist in the 90’s, he was caught fabricating his own stories while going to great lengths to create fake sources. Glass used to write for many important magazines such as The New Republic, Harpers, Rolling Stone, and George magazine (Penenberg 1), but he ended up ruining his reputation with his dishonesty. While Glass was working for a publication called “The New Republic,” he was questioned on a new piece of writing that he had done about a tech company, one which no one had ever heard of. At this point in his career, he had written over two years of articles for the magazine. As people learned that his tech article had been made up, deeper research was done on his writings. It was found that more than half of his articles had been fabricated and that the sources given were not legitimate (Bissinger 4). Glass had been able to fly under the radar with the fact-checkers, as he had created sources and material to back up evidence. He created phone numbers, websites, business cards, and even made up the people. As a beloved staff member, he had created strong and trustworthy relationships with the people he was surrounded by in the office. This created a sense of trust, which didn’t give his co-workers any reason to doubt the credibility of his writing. Stephen Glass able to get away with writing false stories for so long because of the effort that he put into his false sources, personal relationships, and making sure that the people were reading something that they wanted to believe. 

Stephen Glass went through a lot of effort to ensure that he had a good story. In his stories, he made up characters that people would relate to, or that they would think were captivating. People were sometimes completely made up, but he made sure to have a description and attach a personality to them. While writing a piece, Glass creates a whole entire company. He includes characters who don’t exist, notes on said people, and details that go in depth. While he created physical evidence to back up his stories, he was also sure to intentionally make some mistakes. This was important for him because it ensured that the fact checkers had something helpful to do while he was creating proof of sources. All of the bases were covered for fact checking, since he created specific proof for everything. He was known to set up fake voicemails, meeting notes, customized letterheads, and diagrams (Bissinger 4). It wasn’t easy for editors to catch his lies, he had done an in-depth job at backing up his sources. For the piece that Glass wrote on his fake tech company, he set up a phone line that was supposed to be used as proof that the company was legitimate. However, when two people tried to call at once, there was a realization that a major software company wouldn’t have only one phone line. 

Stephen Glass made sure to be friends with those around him. While he was busy making up stories and sources, he made sure that he had their trust. In one instance, Glass remembers from a previous conversation that his friend likes a certain kind of beverage. Even though the conversation had been a year ago, he had labeled it for her and put it in the fridge at a party. The friend is taken by surprise and is shocked that he remembered what she had said (Ray). Glass made sure that he was seen as a kind and understanding friend to ensure that nobody had a reason not to trust him. There was a large effort made to maintain a personal relationship with the editors that were above him, as he wanted to make sure that they’d be on his side. While working on a web of lies, Glass pretended to be loyal.  

In reality, no one wants to read a boring story. In his writing, Stephen Glass shows what the reader want they want to see. Instead of choosing a legitimate news journal story to write about, Glass writes creative and exciting stories about things that have never happened. His characters were captivating and even had specifics details about their personal lives. When Glass wrote his piece called “Hack Heaven”, he made sure to end his story with a bang. A fifteen-year-old boy standing on a chair in a room full of people, shaking his fists, hacking another server, and demanding money for a Miata and Disney world (Glass 3). The whole company is made up, as well as all of the characters. This goes to show that no matter the cost, Glass ensured that his readers were left entertained. 

Editors can do a number of things to prevent fabricated stories from being published. There should have been more attention to detail when it came to the fact checking. For example, there was a suspicion about his detail about a mini fridge in a story that he wrote. While fact checking, they had only asked if having a mini fridge was possible, not if the person in question had used one (Ray). By asking this question, it would have been made clear if the information that they were looking for was true or not. While the editors are looking for source confirmation, it should be made into a personal meeting and interview, not just a simple email, notes, or a card. Before anything gets published or released, there must be more in-depth confirmation from the “source” to be true. In the future, when editors are looking for proof of characters and fact checking, they should need multiple connections about them. For example, there should be existing photos of the person somewhere on the internet, which can help lead to contact information online. Similar to the way that “two factor authentication” works for technology, they should have to use more than one reference to prove legitimacy. Legally, there could be a rule in place that says information about or written about a certain person can’t be published unless the person themselves confirms it. This would have changed Glass’ story dramatically, since none of his fake sources and references would have shown up to confirm their story.

+
x
Remember! This is just a sample.

You can order a custom paper by our expert writers

Order now
By clicking “Receive Essay”, you agree to our Terms of service and Privacy statement. We will occasionally send you account related emails.