The Importance of Telling the Truth

Elizabeth Harris
Eh109111@ohio.edu

As I sat in my very first journalism class my freshman year of high school, the first lesson my teacher  taught to my class of young, aspiring journalists concerned the topic of journalistic ethics. To this day, I still remember her stressing the importance of always remaining objective and, most importantly, telling the truth. 

My teacher had us watch the movie Shattered Glass in class to demonstrate the importance of always remaining ethical. Shattered Glass tells the true story of a young journalist named Stephen Glass, who fabricated twenty-seven out of forty-one of his published articles over a three-year time span. In order to fabricate his stories, Glass went to extreme measures to violate any and all ethical codes that a journalist should follow. Essentially, Shattered Glass teaches journalists everything they should not do from an ethical standpoint. 

                                  Shattered Glass teaches journalists the consequences of not telling the truth.  

To remain ethical, there are certain principals that every journalist should follow. Everyone’s code of ethics may vary, however, certain general trends and principals tend to remain the same in all ethical codes. The most important of those principles in my opinion, is telling the truth.

Tell the Truth

Truth is the key principle of journalism. Without reporting the truth, journalism cannot be successful. It is journalists responsibly to always make it a priority to report the truth. With all of the concern today of the decreasing trust that the public has in the media, the necessity of telling the truth should be every journalists first priority. 

SPJ’s Truth Principle

SPJ's Code of Ethics states: "Ethical journalism should be accurate and fair. Journalists should be honest and courageous in gathering, reporting, and interpreting information" This is just one example of how to define the importance of telling the truth. However, it is a general definition the all journalists should strive to live by. It seems easy to do – everyone knows lying is wrong, right? Well, that is not always the case.

Why Not Tell the Truth?

It seems foolish to wonder why any journalist would even think to stray from telling the truth. As journalists, one of the first lessons taught to us is to tell the truth. Why violate the principle that serves as the basis of the heart of journalism? The main reason seems to be for personal gain. The journalism industry is competitive, everyone wants to be the best, write the best stories, and most importantly, be known. Some people, like Stephen Glass, are willing to go to extreme measures in hopes of becoming the best. Glass’ way of working his way to the top was simply to lie. He lied over, and over, and over again.

In an interview with 60 Minutes, Glass admitted that he “Lied for esteem.” He continued to say:

"I knew how the system worked. And I made it so that my stories could get through. I invented fake notes. I later would invent a series of voice mailboxes and business cards. I invented newsletters. I invented a website," says Glass. "For every lie I told in the magazine, there was a series of lies behind that lie that I told - in order to get it to be published." 

Lies Will Eventually be Caught  

How Glass thought he could get away with this absurdity does not make any sense to me. More importantly, how he got away with telling all the lies he told for as long as he did is even more mind-boggling. The truth of the matter is, however, though he did finally get caught, he did get away with fabricating stories for a very long time, and that is unacceptable.

A very strong lesson can be learned from Glass’ decision to lie. Straying away from the truth as a journalist will hurt you. It will not only hurt you, but it will hurt your editors, co-workers, individuals discussed in the stories, and the readers. Journalists who decide to lie and fabricate stories will lose all the credibility they have ever established as well as their entire career. In Glass’ case,  his whole life as he knew it ended up shattered a result of his unethical decisions. All other journalists can prevent themselves from getting in a situation similar to the one of Glass; they simply just have to tell the truth.