Stephen Glass

Stephen Glasswasa reporter for The New Republic until he was caught fabricating stories in 1998. In the beginning, Glass may have made up a few facts or quotes, but by the end of his career he was publishing entire stories that were based on nothing. The story that broke his career was entitled "Hack Heaven" and was about a 15 year old hacker who hacked into a corporation, and in instead of calling the police on the, the company decided to hire him. This story was provennottrue in Forbes magazine's story, Lies, damn lies, and fiction. The article goes into how they tried to do a follow-up on the hacker and found not a single thing Glass had said to be true, including the existence of the company (Jukt Micronics) or the hacker Ian Restil. The article goes through all of Glass's lies, including radio announcements warning companies not to hire hackers in the state of Nevada and the "National Assembly of Hackers" to be false.

This term is important to journalism today because it shows how important accuracy is. This deals with libel, as he made up unappealing details about White House executive Vernon Jordan. It is unethical to invent people, places, events, facts or quotes and sell them to people as if they were true. This makes readers not trust reporters and the publications they write for. It is interesting that he wrote for a well known and well respected magazine, because usually "online journalists" are the ones that get the most complaints about inaccuracy and inconsistency.

Another interesting fact, Stephen Glass received a law degree from Georgetown University and is said to be practicing law in the state of New York. He has also published a book The Fabulist about a Washington reporter who is also a pathological liar and in 2003 the movie Shattered Glass depicted the scandal.

In his interview for 60 Minutes Glass admitted that he was sure he had hurt many people, but was unable to apologize.