A LA Times article about his struggle to become a lawyer from this summer:
http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jul/04/local/la-me-adv-glass-20120704
Mr. Kaplan @ NSHS |
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What are your reactions to the film? Should we find any way to sympathize with Stephen Glass? Are the lessons of his story unique to his life, or do you see parallels with the world in which you live? what questions does it raise? What didn’t you understand? Was it realistic? Did your allegiances change? Add your thoughts as a comment on this message.
A LA Times article about his struggle to become a lawyer from this summer: http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jul/04/local/la-me-adv-glass-20120704
18 Comments
Jenny Friedland
10/23/2012 11:05:32 am
Yes, I sympathize with Glass. It's not always satisfying to turn in something that you've done thoroughly and with great care, but which there was no way to make exciting — whether it's a project on cell structure or a newspaper article. But that in no way excuses Glass' behavior. His editors relied on him to do the job he was hired to do, and the American public expected him to inform them about truths of their country they hadn't discovered for themselves. Glass failed on both counts, and in the process, harmed the name of TNR and cast shadows on journalism in general. If Glass could get away with this at a publication as reputable as TNR, could it be happening elsewhere? In fact, it has, though I don't recall anyone getting caught on as grand a scale since. Just a few months ago, Fareed Zakaria plagiarized from an essay run in The New Yorker (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/10/fareed-zakaria-plagiarism-new-yorker-time_n_1764954.html). His career didn't end, though, and his untruthfulness was less sweeping than Glass', but it's upsetting that we can't always catch the journalists who don't play by the rules before their bylines run.
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Matt Dahl
10/23/2012 02:52:36 pm
Wow, I'm shocked! I have always had a very high opinion of Fareed.
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Olivia DeAngelo
10/23/2012 11:19:05 am
"Shattered Glass" is a movie about journalism and ethical dilemmas regarding a publishing magazine. I think most of us can relate to being under a lot of pressure and making a poor move. I could find reason to sympathize for Glass only if it was a one time fabrication. The fact that he fabricated 27 out of 41 articles is not a situation I can be too understanding about. It was a repeated action rather than a rash decision. I thought the story was realistic hence the fact that it is a true story. I didn't understand at first the point of showing Glass back at his high school but then I realized that it was just displaying the thoughts in his head/his perspective. The movie, I thought, was intriguing and suspenseful because we watched somewhat of a deterioration of Glass.
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Sam Houston-Read
10/23/2012 11:45:24 am
"Shattered Glass" is a movie that shows us the world of journalism and how one individual Steve Glass succumbed to the pressure. Glass, got positive responses from his fabricated stories and a positive reaction from other magazines and publications. If this was an isolated incident, I would be understanding. The fact that more than half of his published stories were fabricated shows us his character. He was so focused on making his name a renown one that when things started to become questioned he did everything he could to cover it up. Stress, if definitely something a student in high schooler can relate to. Students are under pressure to get good grades just like writers are under pressure to get good reviews. One time if a student cheats on an assignment, gets a good grade and doesn't get in trouble, they would feel like they could do it every time. Similarly, Glass fabricated a story, it got through the editors and got positive reviews so he felt he could keep doing it. I believe that the story is definitely believable, it is a story that shows the deterioration of a writer.
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Joe Joseph
10/23/2012 12:05:53 pm
What I thought the movie did very effectively was play with our allegiances from beginning to end. Without a doubt, it was incredibly hard not to like Stephen Glass in the beginning of the movie: a young reporter who has made a name for himself and still finds time to talk to aspiring journalists about what he does. What's not to like? On the opposite end of the spectrum, Chuck is portrayed as the outsider in "The New Republic" office, especially when he is chosen to replace Mike, and the office turns against him. By the end of the movie, however, the roles have completely reversed. As the web of lies crafted by Glass starts to unravel and reveal itself, we start to realize he is not the hero we originally thought him to be. On the other end, Chuck, who is shown trying to support his family but also deal with his new job as the editor, becomes the new protagonist. This role reversal shows just how intense the crimes of Steven were, to turn him form protagonist to antagonist.
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Sam Paragona
10/23/2012 01:20:44 pm
Shattered Glass is a movie that hightlights the ethics that surround publishing articles. I do sympathise with Steve, because the amount of pressure journalists are under can cause a lot of stress. However, I think that he deserved to be fired because this was not a one time incident. If Steve had a good excuse and only lied once, I think it would be okay to only suspend him, but it would still be hard to trust him. I understand how tempting it can be to take the easy way out of situations, but at the end of the day being honest is always the better option. It became clear that producing an amazing article that makes people laugh, was more important than the truth. This shows his true character. Even after being confronted numerous times about his lies, Steve continued to lie because he became so used to it. As a student, stress is something that every high schooler has to deal with. Some students turn to cheating as a way to achieve good grades without putting in the effort. Similarly to Steve's situation, often times cheating is not a incident that only happens once. This story is very realistic, and does a great job showing how lies can spiral out of control.
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Rachel Hargreaves
10/23/2012 01:34:24 pm
It interesting that one of the first topics that Steve Glass talks about with the fictional classroom of students is the immense influence that journalism has on society, how it is able to change opinions, cause a previously undiscovered controversy and so on. For this reason it is both unbelievable and more understandable that he attempted such a large act of fabricating and falsely backing up 29 different pieces of work. On the one hand, it is insane that he attempted and succeeded for so long of lying to the public, his boss and his coworkers. But to have taken it to such the extent he did was certainly a waste of his own time. The amount of effort and time that it must have taken to produce all that false evidence could have instead been used to find stories that actually existed in the real world. But on the other hand, this pressure of having such an effect on the world makes it more understandable as to why he did what he did. Those pressures are the only reason he felt he must live up to the standard, and once he got so entangled in his lies, to surpass any article or story of the past.
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Jesse Feldstein
10/23/2012 01:55:40 pm
When I first saw Hayden Christensen’s face I nearly gagged. But that is neither here nor there, and his acting was actually serviceable. I feel as though I got a solid idea of the character Stephen Glass, even if his portrayal deviates from his personality in real life.
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Sophie Swetz
10/23/2012 02:18:49 pm
Until hearing that the film depicts the true events of Stephen Glass' career at The New Republic, I thought that Shattered Glass was unrealistic because the other writers and editors didn’t manage to catch Glass’ 27 false stories until Forbes did. It made me wonder how those responsible for checking facts in the writing were able to miss such huge flaws, including the fabrication of entire stories. The story also made me think about how technology has altered journalism. Living in a new age of technology, I think it would be far easier to catch such an invented report, because any one reading an online article can look up more information on the news story on the web on their own.
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Mike Pezza
10/23/2012 02:19:57 pm
I really like the movie, it was a interesting, and not quite what I thought that it would be. I thought it would just kind of follow a journalist and show how he researched and wrote his story. I think the way that it showed to struggles and morals of journalism made a much better movie.
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Ana Daurio
10/23/2012 02:39:04 pm
I really liked the film because it had an interesting plot and knowing that it was based on a true story really got me thinking about the world of journalism and how much of what we read in newspapers and magazines is true. I do believe that we could have some sympathy or Stephen Glass because this film demonstrated the pressure there is on journalists to come up with interesting, unique stories about events in the United States. I thought that the story definitely had parallels in the real world because although it isn't the same thing, this story is similar to when people plagiarize others' writings. They feel the need to come up with some story or idea that is incredible and some would rather make things up or plagiarize rather than come up with something unexciting or boring.
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Matt Dahl
10/23/2012 02:49:13 pm
I was pleasantly surprised by the production of Shattered Glass - director Billy Ray can be complemented for his work, which certainly expressed more subtly than was found in 2004's Suspect Zero. Incidentally, Ray also wrote the screenplay for the recent blockbuster The Hunger Games.
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Francesca Sands
10/23/2012 02:51:32 pm
I came to class with a general idea of what “Shattered Glass” was about, so I knew what to expect as far as Stephen Glass making up his news stories. Nonetheless I really enjoyed the movie. Already privy to Stephen’s secret before the movie, I watched the movie with attention to details that may point towards Stephen’s character flaw. Like a good movie should, I got a hint of those flaws in his personality before they were exposed to the audience, but they were not overly obvious.
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Rebecca Heller
10/23/2012 03:22:30 pm
I had never heard of Stephen Glass or the incident before watching this movie. Not previously knowing the plot or conflict of the film, I thought it was very interesting and intriguing. Before realizing the movie was based on a true story, I would have thought the plot was absurd and unrealistic. I never would have thought that a writer for a highly respected journal/magazine would be able to get away with fabricating stories as much and as easily as Glass could. It seems to me that there should be another, more reliable, way to check the facts of the types of reports that Glass wrote, besides just looking at the authors notes. This led me to the question: have magazines/newspapers changed the process for fact checking since the Glass scandal was revealed? I would be very surprised if they haven't, considering how easily Glass got away with fabrication for so long. I also wonder if it is partly the fault of the original editor for being too trusting? It begs the question: can you criticize an employer for trusting their employees? I think this is an interesting idea to ruminate on.
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Kitty Crowley
10/23/2012 04:09:03 pm
I liked the film a lot. The shift in allegiance is the most important aspect of the plot, and the part I remember the most about the movie. However, I felt as though it was predictable that our opinion of Glass would worsen throughout the movie. Ever since the first time Glass's coworker asks him why he is talking to another paper, and he replies, "It's probably nothing", I sensed something Shady about Glass.
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Han Zhang
10/23/2012 04:54:44 pm
First allow me to say that Shattered Glass was an excellent movie. The acting was convincing and emotionally powerful. The pacing was well done, and the humorous parts well placed. All in all, this was a well made movie.
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Daoxu
10/24/2012 01:24:19 am
Personally speaking, I enjoyed the movie. The acting and portrayals of what happened in Stephen's mind yet did not actually occur managed to fool me into thinking that he was innocent for most of the time. I sympathize with Glass over his high stress and heavy workload however that is no excuse to print off lies as truths. The boring truth is better than an exciting lie when it comes to journalism.
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Emily Ho
10/24/2012 03:55:58 am
I absolutely found many ways to sympathize with Steven Glassman. I feel like the movie developed the story in such a way that it was impossible not to sympathize with him. He's human, as are we, and with those similar feelings that we all share, we follow his journey and his personality that I feel like we have to feel for him when everything fell apart. I personally can understand that he suffered and felt the pressure to lie and cheat and I feel like that can be related to a lot within our reality because people do crack under pressure and really try to take the easy way to succeed. The plot was real, which I thought was really cool because it's such a complicated plot that it almost seems like fantasy. It seems like one of Steven Glassman's stories. I feel like it was confusing and deceiving to follow at times, but that really added to the fact that the story was all about this deceiving and lying reporter! It's really important to journalism because it displays such an important part of journalism--the truth and the facts that back up stories.
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