This could fit nicely as an additional section in one of my recent posts about Stephen Glass, but I decided to give it its own post. Recently, 3 people at CNN resigned (I wonder if they felt forced into doing that) because a story had been published without the proper verification. I read a Washington Post article about the incident and delved a little bit into the comments. Some people view this situation as overblown and note that CNN did the right thing by retracting the story and apologizing, as the people responsible resigned. They also consider the dichotomy of other news organizations such as Fox News not getting criticized by the president for inaccuracies and errors in their reporting. Personally I think it's a good thing that CNN took responsibility for the error and apologized, although it's possible that the resignation of the people involved wasn't completely necessary. That may be more of an optics thing.
In googling "journalistic offenses" I came across some interesting things on Poynter.org: one which suggests that people who commit journalistic offenses shouldn't be 'excommunicated' and instead should be taken back in and rehabilitated/taught how to be a proper journalist who does not plagiarize/fabricate. The other is about which errors are enough to get a journalist fired, and the conclusion in that article is that there isn't a clear standard. Re: the first article, I think what happened with Brian Williams could be an example of the proposal in it. He lost his position as anchor of NBC's Nightly News (which I remember watching as a child) for making some things up about what happened to him when reporting in the Middle East. A few years later on, he hasn't been completely exiled. He appears on MSNBC as an occasional anchor, to my knowledge. Another disgraced journalist mentioned in this article (this looks like another rabbit hole for me to go down) is Jayson Blair, who wrote for the New York Times and in 2003 his plagiarism and fabrication were discovered. More commentary on him to come, probably. I'm curious as to how his case compares to Stephen Glass - the nature of the fabrications as well as the motivations. It looks like this guy has also written a book, so that could be an interesting read as well.
ETA: all my thoughts about Jayson Blair's plagiarism and fabrication.
I first read through the Wikipedia article on him, which says that he fabricated being in locations that he never went to, as well as plagiarizing some things here and there. He also made up quotes from people he hadn't spoken to and other details in his stories. In the list of journalistic offenses he committed, it mentions that he also misspelled names on multiple occasions. There was also an interesting tidbit that I wasn't aware of before - a Law and Order episode (that I refer to in my mind as 'the plagiarism one') was based on his journalistic offenses. I didn't know it had been based on a true story and that this was the true story it was inspired by.
As to his motivations, apparently in an interview he said that he did it mainly because he was afraid he wouldn't live up to his own and others' expectations, and that it began with a small ethical misconduct which later grew to larger proportions. It doesn't look like he ever made up entire stories, unlike Stephen Glass. I'm not really sure how The New Republic compared in terms of status/prestige in the late 90s and early 2000s so it's hard to draw a comparison as to the magnitude - how large of an audience read the plagiarism and fabrications. "Blair explained that his fabrications started with what he thought was a relatively innocent infraction: using a quote from a press conference which he had missed." This is actually fairly similar to what happened with Glass - he thought an article of his was missing a good quote so he just made one up and left it in there. As far as motivations are concerned, their motivations were somewhat different - wanting to meet people's expectations (ie a fear of failure) vs wanting to be liked/to impress people (colleagues). However you could argue that those motivations have a bit in common - feelings of insecurity, or perhaps moreso inadequacy for Jayson Blair. They were both young men who wrote for well-respected publications and ended up as journalistic disgraces. In a New York Times article detailing the saga of Blair, colleagues describe him as being sloppy and careless, causing him to make mistakes which he was continually reprimanded for. They also said that he was quite involved in office politics and gossip, but charismatic. However, he continued to make mistakes and transgressions, clashing with his editors on multiple occasions. There's an interesting passage in this article that bears remarkable similarity to some things that happened with Stephen Glass: a confrontation between fabricator/plagiarist and editor - "'Look me in the eye and tell me you did what you say you did,' Mr. Roberts demanded. Mr. Blair returned his gaze and said he had." The article also describes Blair's editors demanding to see his notes because they were suspicious. It says that his friends felt betrayed by his deceitful actions, which is something I saw when reading about Stephen Glass as well. Someone quoted in the article said that it's difficult to catch people who are intentionally trying to deceive; a similar sentiment was expressed by Stephen Glass' editor. The NYT article from 2003 raises the question of how long Blair's misdeeds will be associated with the paper, which is kind of interesting to think about in the present day. I personally was unaware of both of these cases of fabrication (and in one, plagiarism) until I happened to watch a movie about one of them, which led me to read up on the matter. However these things happened/were in the news before I was old enough to register them, so someone older than me may remember both of these scandals.
As for differences, one that seems worth noting is the apparently careless/sloppy nature of Blair's journalistic offenses/mistakes as opposed to the meticulousness that Stephen Glass went to with his fabrications. Throughout Blair's career in journalism he was being reprimanded for various mistakes. From what I've read about Glass, it doesn't look like he was considered to be careless or sloppy by his colleagues. He could also be considered to have been charismatic, although perhaps in a bit of a different way - he yearned to please/impress/be liked and was self-deprecating, criticizing his own work and constantly asking people if they were mad at him. In a 2016 interview of Blair, he says that at the time he plagiarized and fabricated, he was suffering from bipolar disorder as well as recovering from drug and alcohol addictions, but does not consider that to be an excuse for his behavior.
In closing, I think there's some interesting summer reading on my horizon: Stephen Glass' lightly fictionalized account of his journalistic offenses (The Fabulist) as well as Jayson Blair's book (Burning Down My Master's House), which wasn't lightly fictionalized. Conveniently they can be had from Amazon at reduced prices. Hopefully they will be interesting and insightful.
https://www.poynter.org/2012/why-journalism-should-rehabilitate-not-excommunicate-plagiarists/185085/
http://www.poynter.org/2013/which-reporting-errors-will-get-one-fired-good-luck-finding-clear-standards/226805/
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