"Are You Mad At Me?"

Brittany Perrine
bp929006@ohio.edu



Shattered Glass is a movie based on a true story that questions the ethics and fact-checking practices used in professional journalism. After watching it today, I am left thinking about the importance of morals and judgment, about character and integrity, and about truth and responsibility in journalism. It reminded me a lot of another movie called All the President's Men, with Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford as the Washington Post reporters who broke the Watergate scandal.

However, one aspect of the whole situation that the movie didn’t address at all was the reasoning behind Stephen Glass' actions. What initially compelled him to start lying and falsifying his work? What prompted him to continually skirt the fact-checking department? And why were some of his stories based entirely on fact? The film would have you believe that it was Stephen's lack of self-esteem or confidence that possessed him to create fiction and that he lied only because he wanted to be liked, shown by Glass repeatedly asking his colleagues “are you mad at me?”

But something tells me that there is a deeper reason, one that may involve journalism pressures. One that compels journalists to continually produce the next best thing and oftentimes to cross the boundaries between uneventful true stories and sensationalized interest stories. Little by little the white lies snowball into something bigger. And before you know it, you've created a piece where the only definitive fact is the state in the Union called Nevada.