CSNbbs

Have you seen the movie Shattered Glass? It just came out on DVD and is about the writer Stephen Glass from The New Republic. I thought it was pretty good. I still can't believe he got away with all the stuff that he wrote.

I should go see it. I didn't even know about it.

The latest scandal is USA Today's foreign correspondent (The Nation's Largest Newspaper is too cheap to pay for more than one).

He was making up stuff, apparently.

This stuff is so shocking because it really is rare. Trouble is, it's hard to root out, too.

Schadenfreude Wrote:This stuff is so shocking because it really is rare. Trouble is, it's hard to root out, too.

Says who?

DrTorch Wrote:

Schadenfreude Wrote:This stuff is so shocking because it really is rare. Trouble is, it's hard to root out, too.

Says who?

"Says" the same guy who is trying to trick himself into believing that his hand is a swimsuit model's vaCHINA! :D

CHIPPEWA ENEMA Wrote:

DrTorch Wrote:

Schadenfreude Wrote:This stuff is so shocking because it really is rare. Trouble is, it's hard to root out, too.

Says who?

"Says" the same guy who is trying to trick himself into believing that his hand is a swimsuit model's vaCHINA! :D

Could you be more specific? I'm guessing that includes about 99% of us at one time or another.

CHIPPEWA ENEMA Wrote:

DrTorch Wrote:

Schadenfreude Wrote:This stuff is so shocking because it really is rare. Trouble is, it's hard to root out, too.

Says who?

"Says" the same guy who is trying to trick himself into believing that his hand is a swimsuit model's vaCHINA! :D

You mean it's not?

Oddball Wrote:[Could you be more specific?

Okay, how about the guy who's tethered to a Kinko Copy Machine in Ann Arbor, and is only released to chase gay penguins around the zoo? :D

Ah, gotcha! How is your son-in-law doing these days?

Well, let's put it this way: My S.O.B. was caught bulking up on Andro, wearing only white mink, and insisting that he was "Vanilla Gorilla." :D

DrTorch Wrote:

Schadenfreude Wrote:This stuff is so shocking because it really is rare. Trouble is, it's hard to root out, too.

Says who?

I put in 11 years in the business at three different newspapers.

I worked with one guy who was fired, well after I left, for making up letters to the editor. (He oversaw the editorial page and also wrote a column. The letters tended to respond to his column, both for and against. He wanted to seem like his column was very well read). The newspaper went public with what it had discovered immediately.

That's about it in 11 years and I worked with -- probably -- hundreds of different people.

Quite often, public officials will claim they were misquoted. Most of the time, they are lying to CYA.

That's the problem with rooting this kind of stuff out. At some level, as an editor, you need to trust the reporter. You can't be out there in the field with him. You can't read his notes. You just trust that they share the seriousness with which you take good journalism and getting things right.

Finally, I should say this: I never made up one word.

I screwed up now and again. A few times, I screwed up royally. And there may have been times when my biases got the best of me.

But I never made one word up.

Very, very few ever do. It's a cardinal sin. It is not tolerated.

The guy who was making up letters to the editor is now a mid-level flunkie in some government office. His journalism career is over.

Schadenfreude Wrote:Very, very few ever do. It's a cardinal sin. It is not tolerated.

Your Honor, I refer you to Noam Chomsky's, "Manufacturing Consent," "Secrets, Lies and Democracy," "The Common Good," "Understanding Power," "The Chomsky Reader," and "Chomsky on Miseducation." Oh, and let's not omit "The New York Times." Thank you, Your Honor.

CHIPPEWA ENEMA Wrote:

Schadenfreude Wrote:Very, very few ever do. It's a cardinal sin. It is not tolerated.

Your Honor, I refer you to Noam Chomsky's, "Manufacturing Consent," "Secrets, Lies and Democracy," "The Common Good," "Understanding Power," "The Chomsky Reader," and "Chomsky on Miseducation." Oh, and let's not omit "The New York Times." Thank you, Your Honor.

I'm not arguing with Chomsky. I believe the thesis of Manufacturing Consent could be stated this way:

Mix underpaid reporters at understaffed newspapers with elites in government and big corporations with tons of money to burn on public relations and other methods of projecting a certain point of view and message and the result can be the manufacture of consent.

Fine.

Taking the Heritage Foundation at their word is one thing. Giving critics of the idea that global warming is possible more credibility than they deserve without looking into their sources of funding is one thing.

But that's not the same as flat out making stuff up.

SF

You definitely need to rent the DVD. It really is pretty amazing how he got around the system(I was going to say beat but the way this thread has gone.... :) ). I believe Stephen Glass gave his notes to the fact checkers as sources. If you do rent it I would suggest watching the movie again with voiceover over the directer and Chuck Lane discussing the making of the movie. It was really quite informative and entertaining.

RocketAlum Wrote:SF

You definitely need to rent the DVD. It really is pretty amazing how he got around the system(I was going to say beat but the way this thread has gone.... :) ). I believe Stephen Glass gave his notes to the fact checkers as sources. If you do rent it I would suggest watching the movie again with voiceover over the directer and Chuck Lane discussing the making of the movie. It was really quite informative and entertaining.

Thanks for the tip. I'll do that.

Schadenfreude Wrote:But that's not the same as flat out making stuff up.

Caveat Emptor. (I don't take anyone/entity/event at its "word," and sometimes that includes Chomsky. What he does elaborate on, quite extensively, in fact he names the writers at certain newspapers/publications, as to how they purposefully omit relevant information---and that to me is the SAME AS LYING/FABRICATION!) :D
I no longer watch/listen to the "hacks" on any domestic television channels. I prefer NPR, the BBC's Judith "Swallow" (why do I love that name?), and sometimes the CBC. While I have no affinity for the English, they're not afraid to take pot-shots at us while showing another side to an issue. Same goes for the Junior-Americans north of us. You get a much better perspective of what's really going on. Okay, I'm done. :D

Schadenfreude Wrote:

DrTorch Wrote:

Schadenfreude Wrote:This stuff is so shocking because it really is rare. Trouble is, it's hard to root out, too.

Says who?

I put in 11 years in the business at three different newspapers.

I worked with one guy who was fired, well after I left, for making up letters to the editor. (He oversaw the editorial page and also wrote a column. The letters tended to respond to his column, both for and against. He wanted to seem like his column was very well read). The newspaper went public with what it had discovered immediately.

That's about it in 11 years and I worked with -- probably -- hundreds of different people.

Quite often, public officials will claim they were misquoted. Most of the time, they are lying to CYA.

That's the problem with rooting this kind of stuff out. At some level, as an editor, you need to trust the reporter. You can't be out there in the field with him. You can't read his notes. You just trust that they share the seriousness with which you take good journalism and getting things right.

Finally, I should say this: I never made up one word.

I screwed up now and again. A few times, I screwed up royally. And there may have been times when my biases got the best of me.

But I never made one word up.

Very, very few ever do. It's a cardinal sin. It is not tolerated.

The guy who was making up letters to the editor is now a mid-level flunkie in some government office. His journalism career is over.

I think Torch was saying that you only know about the ones who get caught. Even in your other example about the one guy getting fired in eleven years, it was because he got caught. If a guy is real good and doesn't slip then how would you know. I saw that movie on Glass and he was clever but still an idiot. I figure there are guys out there that work the sytem even better than that but we'll never know. Glass published 29 articles of bullsh-t before he got caught. More than half of his total written output was bogus. If he had quit the magazine before the 29th (or 20 somethingth I don't remeber exactly) it would have never come to light. Knowing about an occurrance and an occurrance happening are two entirely different things.