Loving Lies: Stephen Glass, the most notorious fraud in journalism

[janterry]

Last edited Sat Dec 4, 2021, 08:04 AM - Edit history (1)

decided he would live by one simple rule: Always tell the truth. Then he broke that rule


I’ve never liked liars. I was a newspaper reporter for 20 years and got so frustrated with lying politicians that I started PolitiFact, the fact-checking site. But I’ve found myself intrigued by liars the way a detective is fascinated with master criminals.

When I became a journalism professor at Duke University, in 2013, I got assigned to teach an ethics course and decided to include a section on writers who had fabricated or plagiarized stories.

I found there wasn’t much academic research about them nor much follow-up reporting on them. They are journalism’s ultimate sinners, yet nobody seems particularly interested in what happens to them. Most get fired and are never heard from again. They rarely talk about their crimes or have an opportunity to explain themselves.

I started tracking the handful of new episodes that pop up every year as well as the cases that have become the stuff of legend: Janet Cooke, the Pulitzer winner at The Washington Post who fabricated the story of an eight-year-old heroin addict; Jayson Blair, the young New York Times reporter who invented stories and plagiarized the work of other writers; and Jack Kelley, the USA Today star who made up details in many of his stories. It was during this research that I reached out to Stephen Glass.

(very well written, insightful - and interesting. the story is at link)
https://airmail.news/issues/2021-12-4/loving-lies

[hlthe2b]

1. Your link is bad...

[mahatmakanejeeves]

2. Bad link. Try https://airmail.news/issues/2021-12-4/loving-lies

https://airmail.news/issues/2021-12-4/loving-lies

And a subscription is needed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Glass

[janterry]

3. ty

I got it off twitter

[Walleye]

4. Janet Cooke is notorious.My friend was working in the Washington Post newsroom at the time

My friend said Cooke was a real charmer. And cozied up to Bob Woodward. That of course is rumors. Last I heard a long time ago she was working at a fried chicken place. Ben Bradlee said giving back The Pulitzer was the worst thing he ever had to do. First rule of journalism: Don’t make anything up. I think that has been very muddled into a gray area these days

[janterry]

5. Michael Barnicle survived his

mess. I'm all for second chances. But I don't really trust his opinions anymore.......I don't think we ever learned how much he really lied (jmo)

It sounds like Stephen Glass has really worked hard at reforming his life. Honorably, too.

[Walleye]

6. Didn't know that, I will listen to him differently now

[shrike3]

10. I read a very detailed story of what happened.

I can see how it happened. A quote from a child services' worker in one of her stories said that children under ten were known to be addicts. Cooke was told to find a child addict. She made one up.

According to this story, she was living in Michigan and working in a department store. The story, very well-written, said that the Post ghettoized reporters of color. Put them in what was called the community or neighbors section. Having worked in newspapers myself, I believe that part.

[Walleye]

11. Interesting. I have no doubt that was the case.

Having worked at newspapers myself.

[shrike3]

13. Yep. Not that I'm excusing her behavior.

But I can see how that happened.

[UpInArms]

7. Thank you

Their story made me weep

[modrepub]

8. What's More Important Is Comparing What's Written

at the beginning of a story versus what actually happened. Too many times the first impression you get from a story winds up being refined over several days of news cycles as a more complete picture comes into focus.

One example is the RW talking points blaming the lack of people working on "generous" unemployment benefits put out during the pandemic. That of course was a bunch of horse crap. But no one really followed up with he folks who pushed this narrative.

Or the Hillary investigation late in the 2016 election cycle getting started by gouliani and his minions starting a whisper campaign. No one spreading bulls-t ever seems to get called on it. Dirty tricks once again.

[FreepFryer]

9. Shame it's subscription paywalled.

Amazing stories of these individual cases but the abstract is interesting and I would love to read the argument that connects them in the OP.

[janterry]

12. I got in the first time I tried

and the second time. It is a lovely article. (But after that it became pay walled - why. Perhaps it restricted me after a few free views