Disgraced journalists, yet again

Back down the rabbit hole! In honor of me (although there's still some paperwork to be done) becoming the editor in chief of my college's newspaper, I a) had a Big Mac meal for lunch and b) got myself some new stationery. Also, I looked up the school newspaper for the University of Maryland, because I wanted to see the kinds of articles they publish. It's a much bigger organization, so naturally, there's a bit more breadth to the things they cover. Someone I know of apparently is assigned to cover local government, which just seems so absolutely boring. I'm glad that I get to be editor in chief, as opposed to merely a writer working beneath other editors, which means I have total control over the things that I want to cover (or not cover) as I'm running the publication. Take that, other people who are stuck covering boring topics because they got assigned to it!! I'm going to be in charge!! (I know I'm already in charge of this blog, but me being editor in chief is something I would actually consider as being a real writer, albeit on a small scale. I'm going to have somewhat of an audience, and since I'm the editor in chief, I'll also get some amount of financial compensation.) It feels quite good to be on the brink of being in charge of something, once things get up and running. 

Then, I remembered that another disgraced journalist aside from Stephen "Shattered" Glass had worked at and was in fact the editor in chief of UMD's newspaper - Jayson Blair. I googled him and revisited his plagiarism and fabrication scandal a little bit. Does me becoming editor in chief mean I'm on the road to plagiarism, fabrication and eventually disgrace and infamy as a journalist??  

There's apparently a documentary about him, but I couldn't find it online to watch. Maybe I just need to look harder. I haven't finished his memoir/book yet since I'm not a huge fan of his writing style. It's not particularly great. I did however finish Stephen Glass' lightly/somewhat fictionalized account of his journalistic fall from grace. I'm telling you, even though he fabricated, I still think he was a pretty decent writer. 

Charles Lane, Stephen ('Shattered') Glass' editor at TNR who discovered the fabrications, gave an interview to NPR's Fresh Air program in 2003 coinciding with the release of the movie Shattered Glass. Later in the same episode of the program, Peter Sarsgaard, who played Lane in the movie, is interviewed as well. I actually hadn't come across that interview in the past, so it was nice to have found and listened to that. You can listen to both interviews at NPR's website. 

Edit: I wanted to add a link to this interesting article, which is about portrayals of journalism in film. It mentions various movies, some entirely fictional and some based on real events. When I think of journalism movies, I mostly think about the ones based on real events first, like Spotlight, All the President's Men, and Shattered Glass. However, this article mentioned some movies that aren't based on true events but also have at least somewhat to do with journalism - Contagion and Nightcrawler, both of which I've also watched. The article also mentions another disgraced journalist, Michael Finkel, that I wasn't aware of before, so I'm going to go read up on him now. Disgraced journalists, the gift/subject matter that keeps on giving! 

Edit 2: I thought of a quote that's sort of relevant, although altered slightly: "I can't be doing so badly, because I'm president editor in chief and you're not"

Edit 3: I thought I'd add these links here since I wasn't quite sure they warranted a whole new post of their own, and they regard Stephen Glass... Firstly, this article about his attempts to become a lawyer yet being denied by the courts. I don't remember if I've linked that in any of my past posts about him or not, so if I haven't, here it is. Secondly, this article about how Stephen, as editor in chief of his college newspaper, caught one of the writers fabricating. "You can’t make this stuff up, but if you can, you might want to send your resume to Rolling Stone." It has a link to an article in that same college newspaper (University of Pennsylvania) reflecting on Glass' fabrications, which I actually had not read before. I wonder if all of their articles are archived and accessible, and if I could possibly read some of Glass' articles from when he wrote there? Wouldn't that be something! I feel like I can safely qualify myself as an expert on Stephen Glass. Kind of an obscure subject matter to be an expert on, but whatever. Additional edit to this edit: Regarding the article in Glass' former college newspaper, I found it to be nice and lengthy, pretty interesting and insightful. It's mentioned that he was "not known as a good writer," which kind of surprised me; the same criticism had been leveled at him in at least one other article I've read written by one of his former coworkers at TNR. However, the finished product/articles from him seem well written, so perhaps that was after extensive editing/rewriting as some claimed. Someone who knew him in college described him in that article as being "charismatic" (which I've pretty much figured in all my reading about him) and a "natural leader." The Forbes journalist who became suspicious about Glass' final story for TNR is quoted, saying that perhaps Glass had wanted to get caught because he wasn't as careful with the last story to make it hard to discredit - mentioning he used last names and more specific locations, instead of only first names/anonymous sources and more vague details. That actually wasn't something I had thought of/considered myself before, but it's an interesting perspective. Obviously the only person who knows the answer to that is Stephen Glass himself. It would be interesting to be able to ask him about it though, as well as if he does/did in the past since 1998 want to return to journalism, and why didn't he just become a fiction writer/novelist in the first place?