Documentary series review: The Confession Tapes

This is a newly released Netflix series that incidentally happens to be right up my alley. It is about people who falsely confessed to crimes while being interrogated. The subject matter of murder as well as interrogation is one of my favorites, so naturally I thought this series would at least be sort of interesting, even though I don't really watch any of the other original Netflix series. For example, you'd think that the one they did a couple years ago, Making a Murderer, would've been interesting to me but I tried watching that and found it to be boring.

I started watching the last episode of this series first since they're all about different cases so it doesn't really matter too much which order I go in, and the last one seemed like the most interesting case. So far this is the only one I've seen, but as I watch the others I'll probably add my commentary about them to this review as well. The last episode is about a man who drove his car into a river, killing his 4 children. According to him, it was a tragic accident and not an intentional murder. After about 8 hours of interrogation, he is coerced into confessing. The confession is declared inadmissible as evidence by a judge, so he goes to trial, where the jury convicts him. Incidentally/unfortunately, the judge happens to be unsure of the man's actual guilt when he goes to do the sentencing. He gets sentenced to multiple life sentences without parole. 

I think this would definitely make an interesting movie concept for Peter Sarsgaard to be in as the father who drives the car and ends up killing his children, then gets coerced into confessing that he did it on purpose. It wouldn't be a completely foreign territory as far as subject matter goes for Peter; he's played other murderers. Maybe I would change some elements in this theoretical movie and make it involve a death sentence like his role in the Killing since that could play to how Peter Sarsgaard is opposed to capital punishment. I kind of want to rewatch the season of that show that he was in since it was definitely good acting from him, but it was just so heavy.. I do sort of wish that Boys Don't Cry had gone a little more into the aftermath of the murder; the arrest and a bit of the legal stuff regarding Peter's character being the murderer. That's all relegated to some screens of text at the end. 

So, more to come on this as I watch the rest of the episodes, and, wouldn't this be an interesting subject matter to cover as a journalist, perhaps?? Maybe not right at this moment in my life, but theoretically in the future. 

I should look up which Law and Order episodes dealt with false confessions, since I would think there should at least be a few here and there across the various Law and Order shows. 

Movies I want to rewatch: Requiem for a Dream (back on Netflix, yeehaw!!), Shattered Glass (no surprises there), Experimenter (also not really a surprise), Nightcrawler and Prisoners. 

Prophets and Losses

How many posts have I done about Stephen Glass by this point? I've lost count. As I'm sure is apparent, he is very fascinating to me. I wonder if I could somehow make the subject matter of disgraced journalists to be relevant to something I could write for the student newspaper that I'm now editor in chief of (isn't that great?! And "does that mean I'm on the path to plagiarism and/or fabrication, and ultimately, journalistic disgrace??"). Or maybe I should just keep that kind of content to my blog here.

The title of this post comes from an article he wrote (and at least partially, if not entirely, made up) for Harper's Magazine. Until recently, when I realized that since I'm enrolled in college, I have access to research databases, I hadn't been able to read this article in full, which was a point of contention for me. Thankfully, that realization occurred to me and I set about to looking up this article, "Prophets and Losses", which I was able to find and read in full, finally.

The article is about Stephen Glass' purported experience being a phone psychic for a period of time. Incidentally, if you think about it, this kind of job would actually have been rather fitting for Stephen to have as his main job - he made stuff up as a journalist, and being a phone psychic would've allowed him to do a sort of similar thing - deceive people. In the interview linked later, Stephen gave this absolutely great quote (about being a phone psychic), especially in context of what he did as a journalist: "It's all based on deception, and the problem is that the other side doesn't really know they're being deceived." He also said that he thought non psychics were better at the job, but that people who thought they were actually psychic were more able to live with themselves for being a phone psychic. And he said that he hated himself for the time he claimed to have spent working as a phone psychic. He had/has an alright speaking voice; it's not bad. 

Like I believe I've mentioned/at least touched on (and if I haven't, then I've definitely thought about it) in previous posts, I think at least partly why he did all his lying and fabricating was that he didn't get enough approval/support from his parents, or at least he didn't think he did. This was mentioned a little in the 2014 article in The New Republic that I decided to reread to refresh my memory where he was interviewed by his former coworker about the most recent things he had said about his whole scandal and how his life was going as of 2014. But I guess another part of it could just be attributed to his particular specific personality, which is a psychological thing and I don't think anyone can really deeply know/understand about the intricacies of someone else's personality especially if you don't know said person personally. It raises questions for me (at least) about insecurity and that kind of thing, and I (rhetorically) thought about do I consider myself to be an insecure person, or a fairly confident person?  

He did an audio interview about the article "Prophets and Losses" which you can listen to here (part 1). 

Also, I had been thinking about the movie Shattered Glass, where Hayden Christensen (I had heard someone else's name that rhymed the other day, but it just didn't have the same ring to it that Hayden Christensen does - maybe it's the double rhyme? Hayden Christensen. It's sort of too bad that he didn't really go on to have much of an acting career; he could have theoretically been in some other good movies like Shattered Glass was) played Stephen Glass. I think that was a pretty good casting decision; although the actual Stephen has a bit more of a pudgy face than Hayden Christensen did in the role, I think Christensen conveyed the essence of Stephen Glass well. The movie people got the hairstyle and glasses right, for one thing. If you had only known about Stephen Glass and what he did and not what he looked like, I think you might think that Hayden Christensen is a good fit for that kind of a person. It's hard to imagine Stephen Glass looking like, say, a bodybuilder type of guy. 

As it stands, I think Experimenter and Shattered Glass are the most rewatchable performances of Peter Sarsgaard's. Boys Don't Cry and The Killing were certainly good, but they're fairly heavy in terms of subject matter. Plus, in the former ones, Peter's characters are sort of more likable/pleasant people. The latter ones have him playing murderers/criminals. I think Jarhead is somewhere in the middle; it's not quite as heavy as Boys Don't Cry and The Killing, but it's still about a war. In my experience, I wouldn't consider war movies to be the most rewatchable. Yet, on the other hand, for some reason I find Requiem for a Dream to be quite rewatchable. 

Also, I gained some perspective on the AP Stylebook the other day, which was interesting. It's actually fairly cool, I suppose, to be in the presence of and able to work with people who have formerly been journalists - I would assume there's some more insight I'll gain in the future from that.    

In other sort of journalism related news, Anderson has returned to wearing t shirts (as opposed to polo shirts he had been wearing earlier in the week) and now is wearing a North Face brand jacket; in the past he has worn Carrhart. Either way, both brands are expensive. Awhile back I read some long-ish article about Carrhart as a brand and how it's thought of by the people of so-called middle America, I think. Not that this kind of thing really matters to most people, but it's something I've noticed. It's kind of weird to think about that I have known about/paid attention to Anderson since I was in middle school. So he may be my longest running... person I've paid particular attention to? And I admire him for the job that he's done as a journalist. He is an heir (with a "fancy sounding name" to boot) so he doesn't really have to have a job, but he does. 

Anderson is in Florida as I type this, reporting on the hurricane they're having there. 12 years ago, Anderson got praised (and satirized on SNL by Seth Meyers [which is the only reason I had known about Seth Meyers in the past before he started hosting Late Night], I believe) for his coverage of hurricane Katrina, so maybe we'll get to see some top notch hurricane reporting from him again this time around. I read an article in the Washington Post earlier today about evacuating people from Florida where someone said that although not evacuating might be better in some ways, do they want Anderson Cooper showing up on their doorstep later because they didn't evacuate and people died? Something to that effect. 

In light of the hurricane occurring, I think I'll end this post with the following: Climate change is real, people. If there are some people in Florida who think it's not real and due to that, decided not to evacuate, and because they didn't evacuate, end up getting killed/injured, then maybe they deserved it. (yes, I know that's cold of me to say) And, regarding Stephen Glass, don't do what he did if you're a journalist. (this part should actually probably come after the following part, but it didn't, so just imagine that it does) 

If I somehow have reason in the future to give a speech and it's related to me theoretically becoming/being an at least semi-well known (well known enough to be giving speeches) journalist, I think I would have to thank the following people: Anderson (obviously), first and foremost, then probably my mother for being a Democrat and not a Republican, which I think possibly could be a thing that predisposes people to become journalists? Or rather, more in light of recent political events, if I had been (god forbid) raised as Republican and my family and I became Trump supporters, I doubt that I would value journalism as a career. Then I would probably thank Peter Sarsgaard for having been in a movie that led me to doing some really interesting reading up on an interesting journalism related scandal (and others like it), and by extension, Stephen Glass, for having been the center of an interesting (yet disgraceful, for him) journalism related scandal/event. If I were a different person and had been alive for Watergate, maybe I would also thank the Washington Post journalists who wrote about Watergate and were depicted in the movie All the President's Men. In place of that, I think would be Anderson like I mentioned before. Since this hasn't been something that's happened yet, I can't really say that I would thank this person/people, but if the current political events end in a Watergate-esque manner (journalists uncovering something that leads to impeachment), then I'd probably thank the journalist(s) who broke that story. Seems fair enough. 

Postsecret review 13

"I thank God every day that I eat what I want and don't get fat" If I were religious, I'd probably thank god as well. I also eat mostly what I wan't and haven't gotten hugely fatter or anything. It's kind of a miracle. 

"The FBI is after me - and it turns me on" That's.. different. I wonder what kinds of crimes this person has presumably committed that would cause the FBI to be after them. 

"Dear patrons who were entitled assholes: I hope you burned your fucking retinas out! - Your Friendly Public Librarian" That's not a very friendly thing to say. But I can relate to the sentiment of wishing that unsavory things would happen to people who I dislike/hate/find annoying/etc for whatever reason. 

"I weigh 416 pounds... My body is a prison. I get no parole... I thought I had good behavior..." I wonder how much I'd have to eat in order to gain ~ 300 pounds to weigh 416 pounds. Apparently, much more/worse than I have been eating, and I haven't even been eating particularly healthily. I wonder what it would feel like to be that fat. That would be a lot of flesh to have on one skeleton. 

"I am at my most judgmental when viewing a wedding registry (why do they expect me to buy them a $300 blender?!?)..." If this person feels so strongly about the bride and groom to be not being worthy of getting gifted a $300 blender for their wedding, maybe he/she should just stay home from the wedding.. 

"I thought divorce was the answer... I'm not any happier now that we're divorced" I feel like it would be quite something to be so... confused about your life that you think divorce is the solution to your problems, yet after actually getting divorced, realize that it didn't fix anything.. That seems like someone who's not very self-aware. 

"I can't believe that in today's world you will not let your daughter date my biracial son. She'd be lucky to have him. You'd be lucky to have us. Don't be a jerk We are good parents and have raised a great kid." This one is sort of passive aggressive, but I can understand being angry about people being racist. 

"I always feel awkward at the end of movies when the credits start to roll. I don't know why." I don't know why either. I like the credits, usually. And sometimes if you're lucky, they'll have a nice song over the credits. 

"I'm not sure if my husband would be more shocked to know that I'm having an affair, or that it's with a paraplegic..." I wonder what circumstances led this person to meeting, and then starting an affair with a paraplegic. And theoretically, would the secret writer leave his/her husband to go and be with the paraplegic?? This reminds me of that odd dream I had about eyelashes guy where he became paralyzed (among other things) and it ended with his wife leaving him because she couldn't take the stress of him being paralyzed and having to cope with that and take care of him. Which is probably sort of a lousy thing to do if one's spouse theoretically becomes paralyzed, but hey, it was a dream. 

"I let my best friend leave for war without telling him I was in love with him, Because I was too scared he wouldn't return." I... sort of don't get the reasoning behind this one? I don't see how it would be particularly awful for this guy to go off to war and know that his best friend was in love with him. Regardless of whether he gets killed in the war or not. Best case scenario, he doesn't get killed; second best, he only gets severely injured (paralyzed? Like in Born on the 4th of July?) but left alive... so morbid, I know. But that's not even considering the potential PTSD. That would probably strain a relationship. Speaking of which, Grey's Anatomy should be returning soon this month!!    

Mr. Fabricator

(I'm kind of running out of titles here about this subject matter..)

Apparently, I just can't get enough of reading even more about Stephen Glass, as well as branching out a little bit and reading up on other disgraced journalists too. It seems that watching Shattered Glass really left an impression on me, or otherwise I probably would've not gone and read so, so much about Mr. Fabricator Stephen Glass. Peter Sarsgaard's going to be in a new documentary series, so I guess that's something else I could go down the rabbit hole about. Who says watching movies can't be a thought provoking activity? I think I've definitely expanded my mind by reading up on the various things (and related topics, as it may be) that Peter Sarsgaard has been in movies about - Stephen Glass, Milgram's obedience experiments... those are the ones so far, but I'll probably read about the CIA experiments the new documentary series is about, and the murder case Boys Don't Cry was based on. I'll get to those. I think maybe most people don't put this much effort into informing themselves about the subject matter of movies they've seen. I guess I could also read about the mobsters in Boston that Black Mass was about. I did watch a documentary about that, so it's not like I haven't gotten at least a little bit into that topic. 

Anyways, in addition to Stephen Glass, I've been reading about other fabricators and/or plagiarists in journalism. Obviously, Glass is the one I've read the most about at this time. I've also read a bit about Jayson Blair, formerly of the New York Times as well as, in his day, editor in chief of UMD's student newspaper. I'll skip over the gloating about my new position for now. Last night, while procrastinating some boring and inane homework, I read about Janet Cooke, who fabricated a story (about drug addicts, nonetheless!) at the Washington Post in 1980. This was sort of extra fascinating because the story in question was on the subject matter of drug addicts, which you know I find to be an interesting topic. For that matter, Requiem for a Dream is back on Netflix, apparently! There's also Michael Finkel, who I still have to read up on, and Jonah Lehrer. I did read a bit about Sabrina Erdely, who is probably the most recently disgraced journalist of this kind. A few years ago she wrote an article for Rolling Stone magazine that eventually ended up being discredited. I had been vaguely aware of this having happened, but at the time I didn't really pay attention to that having been in the news, and before having read a bit about that scandal, I couldn't have told you the journalist's name.  

I found this interesting picture of Stephen Glass that I thought I'd share here. It depicts him, presumably when he was in college, with a sign beneath a window that reads "executive editor." He looks happy. It's an interesting picture, what with the pose and framing; maybe I should take a picture of myself in a similar pose, with similar framing! It could be an allusion.. I wonder if there are any good windows that would be suitable so I can recreate the framing. Windows at approximately neck/chest height... hmm... Nevertheless, I hope that I don't end up as a disgraced journalist like Stephen Glass did. I wonder what this picture was for; was it for any official/publicity purpose or did he just feel like taking a fun picture? Someone had to be holding the camera; whose idea was that pose?? Some rhetorical questions that I'll probably never know the answers to. I wonder if Stephen would even remember the circumstances of this picture being taken. Maybe it was a special occasion? Perhaps the day he became executive editor? Just speculating here. I guess if you ask me in 20 years or so, I can see if I remember any pictures I was in at this current time in my life.. In looking up this picture, I also came across a Spanish poster (as well as an interesting review/analysis, although naturally in Spanish) for the movie Shattered Glass, but in Spanish it was retitled as "El Precio de la Verdad," or "The Price of the Truth" which isn't such a bad title, especially since the wordplay on Steven Glass' last name in the original title wouldn't have really worked out in Spanish.     

Also, this. "Steve Glass Not An Attorney" (this is from the website of the law firm in California that he works for now, albeit not as a lawyer) ... I'll add that to my repertoire. Steven "Shattered" Glass, Mr. Fabricator (that one I came up with myself) and Steve "Not An Attorney" Glass... That page also shows a more or less recent picture of him. Nice glasses. He seems to like that style. I wonder how he would look if he decided to wear the frameless kind of glasses. There's also actually a contact form for him at the bottom, which is... a slightly tantalizing possibility. But honestly, I don't really want to bother him, so I'll abstain. Plus, perhaps him or a secretary or something filters out the messages that theoretically involve questions about his journalistic sins. If I were him I could understand not wanting to dwell on that, nearly 20 years later. Interestingly enough, it was only tonight that I really realized how his parents had initially wanted him to become a lawyer, yet he went and became a journalist, but now he's actually working at a law firm and is as close to being a lawyer as he can get, at this time. I wonder if his parents are proud of him now?? Maybe he could apply to become a lawyer in all 50 states and see if any of them would accept him. As something I read in the past stated, surely there are worse people than Steven Glass practicing law. 

Liberal media

A little more gloating and some other stuff as well..

I feel like it's been awhile since I wrote a political-related post. And not that I'm particularly intent on making sure my blog has a sufficient amount of political content, but I read something something sort of relevant and wanted to comment on it. 

Firstly, I have been pondering what sorts of topics I should cover as editor in chief (isn't it nice to have a title like that?!) in my (can I call it mine??) newspaper. Some of the things that don't really interest me as much would be sports, so even though the college does have some sports going on, I'm not really aware of them and I don't have a huge desire to do coverage of that. But for the sake of variety and balance, I feel like I should maybe at least try to include some sports coverage here and there, although maybe I'll just assign that out if possible.. I'd rather not cover that myself. Secondly, I was thinking, should I cover politics as it relates to the people of the college? As an extension of that thought, I thought, does that mean I should try to find a Trump supporter in the student body and interview them? And if I did that, would they request anonymity/a pseudonym to protect their identity?? A) I think it would be hard to find a Trump supporter in the student body, although not necessarily impossible; I guess there probably are at least a few, if no more than that. B) If I were a Trump supporter in the particular environment of this particular college/area, I might not necessarily want my identity revealed in an article. But who knows. I'm semi-reticent about theoretically interviewing a Trump supporter, but hey, that one lady interviewed the Nazis in Charlottesville, so... 

Then, regarding my reticence about theoretically interviewing a Trump supporter, I thought about the idea of the "liberal media". I would definitely consider myself to be a liberal, and since I'm going to be writing for a (albeit small) news publication, I guess I count as media too. Liberal media. In my fairly brief reading about that, I saw some headlines that claimed the idea of the liberal media is a myth, although I didn't read those articles. I found a Washington Post media analysis blog post that examined the idea of the liberal media. This article actually has a quote from eyelashes guy (a conservative) in it at one point! Me personally, I understand why people might consider it to be a "liberal media", so I'm not quite ready to accept the idea that it's a myth. There are a few potential explanations offered by the Washington Post, one being that the geographical location of large media organizations (NYT, WP, etc) are in places like DC and NYC where lots of liberal people live. I guess that makes sense, and it applies to myself as well. 

It still remains to be seen/decided on whether I particularly want to cover politics/sports as they relate to the college, but it's a possibility. Also, I am never drinking tea again because it wreaked havoc on my digestion yesterday. Back on the subject of politics, here is an amusing snarky satirical piece from The New Republic. The illustrations are pretty neat looking too.

Also, what with North Korea and the nuclear weapons being all in the news, I thought about how the term "weapons of mass destruction" seems to have fallen out of favor. I guess there's not as much of a question of whether or not North Korea is in the process of manufacturing them though. 

Some anecdotes

From yours truly as well as one of this blog's readers.

Mine: "Imagine this!! So, the neighbors on both sides of us are moving/have moved already, and anyways, the ones that were still left are currently in the process of moving this weekend. This is the neighbor who we gossip about and think is having a midlife crisis, by the way. Anyways, he came over just a few minutes ago because he needed to borrow a broom since he didn't have one or it had already been packed up. So he rang the doorbell and asked for a broom and my mother went to the garage to get it, and then I stood around while he and her talked a little bit about selling things you don't need anymore and which moving company to use. But get this! It's something else - he sort of talks like Peter Sarsgaard! I would say they have similar-ish voices, but his is maybe a little more lively than Peter Sarsgaard's. !!!!!! My only regret is that I never really spoke to him in the past that much. He's a very talkative person though. It's really too bad I only found out that he talks sort of like Peter Sarsgaard on the day he's moving! I blame my mother and how she criticized him for the various things he did/bought that she thinks are indicative of him having a midlife crisis and being unethical and impulsive. 

Alas!!" 

Reader submission: "Something interesting happened to me yesterday that I forgot to mention. I was shopping for more CD's at Goodwill and a man who was probably 40 or so was standing next to me looking at the DVDs. He started talking about Stephen King movies and, since there was nobody else nearby, it turns out he was talking to me. I didn't want to be rude, but I haven't really seen too many Stephen King movies so I just talked about Misery a little bit. Anyways, he ends up mentioning that he's homeless, which is fine, but I honestly have no idea how to respond to that. Saying something like sorry would be kind of patronizing, but just not saying anything about it is a little bit rude as well, right? Anyways... at this point I'm not really sure what to say. Then, all of a sudden, he starts talking about how he's been saved and said 'there's a heaven and there is a hell and you need to get saved so you end up in the right place.' He goes on to talk about how you have to be careful which church you choose because there are 7 bad ones. Now I really didn't know what to say. That's pretty interesting though, right?" 

If any other readers have interesting anecdotes they'd like to submit, I'm open to that possibility. 

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?