deep in the ocean, there lies a wave for you

I watched Shattered Glass yesterday, and man, was I entertained. For those of you who are not aware of this amazing situation, Sir Glass was a reporter/assistant editor for The New Republic, and he contributed to a bunch of other mags, including Rolling Stone. He made up about 2/3 of the stories he wrote, inventing people, places, organizations, situations, etc. I am mostly amazed with how, in 1998, nobody thought to look anything up on the Internet. Glass’s attempted cover-up was nothing short of genius. He made a “website” for the fake company he created, Jukt Micronics, that was at a members.aol.com page. Here’s a taste:

This is perhaps my favorite excerpt:
“At a conference sponsored by the National Assembly of Hackers last week, teenage hackers and graying corporate executives flocked to Ian, patting him on the back and giving him high-fives. “We’re so proud of him,” said Ian’s mother. “He’s doing such good things, and he’s so smart and kind.” At the formal dinner that followed, the emcee explained that Ian had just signed a contract for $81,000 in scholarship money–and a collection of rare comic books.”

The Glass case was something that got mentioned in journalism classes, but I never knew the specifics of it. Another famous one toted by professors as a sin is the Janet Cooke Washington Post scandal from 1981. This little lady won a Pulitzer Prize for her investigative reporting endeavors, and had to give it back. She completely invented an 8-year-old heroin addict named Jimmy and wrote a piece about him. The best part of this story is that Mayor-extraordinaire Marion Barry said that ‘Jimmy’ was known to the city and receiving treatment. A worthy quote:
“Jimmy’s mother Andrea accepts her son’s habit as a fact of life, although she will not inject the child herself and does not like to see others do it.”
We had a lengthy lesson about Jack Kelley from USA Today in Advanced Reporting. This guy actually wrote letters to friends that were saved on his computer in which he asked them to pretend to be sources sought by the paper to verify his stories. Reporters like these guys always just happened to be in the right place at the right time. This story picks apart one of his articles that, in retrospect, is outright ridiculous.
Reading up and refreshing my memory on all of this stuff has given me, as stated in the title of this entry, a huge journalism boner. Stephen Glass said that when he was assigned a story, he would write it and then think, “If I only had this one quote…” But actually GETTING that quote is such an awesome feeling. I have no sympathy for him or any of these plagiarizers.
This has ignited the journalistic fire in my soul! I scoured mediabistro today looking at dream jobs. I will work at a magazine someday; I will not fuck up; I will be awesome.