In Journalism class, we watched Shattered Glass. Or most of it, anyways. I was having a terrible, awful, no good, very bad day, so it heightened the suckage of the movie for me.

Well, it wasn’t a bad movie really. It followed the, slightly antagonistic, days of Stephen Glass, and appeared to be a lovely movie at first. Stephen Glass seemed to be charming, witty, awkward, and an easy to talk to person. He was a journalist and was loved by his co-workers and boss, Michael Kelly. After a strange “punishment” of circling commas beheld the crew, Michael tried to defend them and ended up getting fired.

Their new boss, Chuck Lane wasn’t too hot for Stephen. Or at least lacked the bond that the last boss shared with the workers.

One of Stephen’s stories was about a teenage hacker, how Ian Restil hacked into the company Jukt Micronics’s computer system and how he became a hero among other hackers.

Guess what? The whole story was total bullcrap. Whoaaaa plot twist of the century.

Ugh.

Anyways a reporter at another company, Adam Penenberg at Forbes Digital Tool, got suspicious and researched the company. Him and his co-workers discovered an amateurish website for Jukt Micronics and nearly no evidence that any of the story actually happened whatsoever.

Aaand Stephen Glass is suspended. For two years.

That’s about where we left off in the movie. In reading of the movie’s Wikipedia page, I discovered that Stephen had admitted that 27 of his articles were fictional in at least one part.

I can understand the pressures of writing, I can. Our school’s journalism program is pretty intense, and, even as a rookie, I’ve found myself one or a few times thinking “maybe I’ll just pretend this happened…”

I didn’t though. I did my best to stick to the truth, however boring or difficult the truth may be. If Stephen had made up one of his stories, maybe two, I would’ve been a little more forgiving towards his character. But no, he had to make up 27 different stories and that is just ridiculous and weak.