Breaking the news about Glass

Just the other day, I watched a movie called Shattered Glass. For those who don't know about this movie yet, it's about the story of Stephen Glass, an aspiring writer for the New Republic during the late 1990s. Gifted though he was, he completely/primarily fabricated over 2 dozen of the 40 or so articles he wrote during that timeframe: he concocted sources, quotes...yes, even whole stories for that matter. In short, he didn't give his readers the truth & nothing but the whole truth about his articles. All he gave was a bunch of fictional mumbo jumbo (or gobbledygook as I prefer to call it). Of course, he was able to deceive his colleagues & higher-ups @ the New Republic but not for long: his deception would soon be unveiled & he would receive the ultimate fall from grace as a result of all his fraudulent reporting.

If there is something valuable we could learn from this movie as well as from Stephen Glass himself, it doesn't pay to plagiarize. And it sure doesn't pay to use a "stranger than fiction" approach to writing a paper or groundbreaking news article as Glass did way too often in his attempt to take a shortcut to fame. As we can see, Glass' efforts in this mode were downright frauds; at worst, they were an unacceptable sacrilege to genuine journalistic reporting in general. A lot of folks thought he was pursuing the office agenda, the expectations which his employer asked of him. But in actuality he was pursuing his own agenda & expectations & having these lofty visions of success on his mind 24/7, he used his charm, smarts & knowhow to make up stories which were in a sense larger than real life. And as anyone who has discovered can concur, they were straight up works of fiction with almost no shreds of truth in them.

For starters, to avoid falling into the same deep pits which Stephen Glass found himself in each time he had to explain about certain holes/discrepancies in his articles, here's some crucial advice to take into consideration:

(1) Note to self: if you're quoting from secondary sources, italicize what they said/wrote in quotation marks to ensure the reader that it wasn't you who put those words on the page for them to read, seriously. Also, when you're doing papers which require footnotes & other whatnot, make sure to put down where you got your quotes from, etc. That way, the reader can be doubly sure that you're not guilty of copying someone else's stuff ad verbatim & passing it off as all yours...plagiarism is just wrong, period.

(2) With #1 in mind, keep the primary sources in mind as well, as well as notes you may have taken in regards to your article, references, so on & so forth.

(3) Speaking of primary & secondary sources, don't invent them off the top of your head. Be sure to get the whole book titles, journals, etc. written down, along with page numbers, notes if necessary. That way, the Chuck Lanes of our day can see to it that your papers aren't full of holes. Not only that, your sources are actually legitimate even if they happen to be out-of-print or hard to come by at the used bookstore.

(4) Writing papers can be a tedious task, no doubt; it's happened enough with me. But don't try & get it all done in one fell swoop like you're a raging workaholic!! Yet at the same time, make sure to keep what you've done at such & such a point as backup to keep your writing process going more smoothly...eventually after tons of proofreading & reworking stuff your paper(s) will turn out to be awesome.

Looking back on Shattered Glass, I can't help but wonder why people like James Frey (author of A Million Little Pieces), Stephen Dunphy & Jayson Blair made the exact same mistakes which Glass helped make famous before they even stepped onto the scene. Some folks just don't learn; I could be wrong here. But this movie really sets the record straight on not only journalistic do's & dont's; it also reveals a striking example of how anyone - not only people in the world of media but in large corporations as well - will do anything to get beyond their 15 minutes of fame, even if it means cutting all ethical corners in the attempt to make a name for themselves.