We have come to learn in a number of lectures that some reporters embellish or even invent stories in order to better their career. Acting in this manner is unquestionably a betrayal of trust and a criminal act. It seems there is trend in glorifying such “former journalists” such as Stephan Glass, whose life as a crooked journalist was made into a sympathising film “shattered glass”
Below is a link to an article pertaining to the former New York Times journalist Jayson Blair. Washington & Lee University in Virginia invited Blair to speak about journalism. What are other people’s thoughts about letting former journalists like these speak at conferences and furthermore make films about their lives?
http://www.kansascity.com/273/story/1555673.html
NB C-notes
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From the WaPo:
NEW YORK -- The Society of Professional Journalists condemned NBC News for
practicing "checkbook journalism" by chartering a jet that carrie...
14 years ago
2 comments:
It's true that Stephan Glass and Jayson Blair committed severely unethical actions, but I don't think it's accurate to describe what they did as "criminal". They didn't break any laws or regulations, as far as I know. We should be careful in how we characterize any type of questionable acts, whether in news reporting or any other arena. One of the lingering bad habits of modern journalism, in my view, is a tendency to inflate the severity of dubious behavior in the interest of spicing up news stories.
I agree that it doesn't seem right to let Jayson Blair earn money by talking about his misdeeds. Regarding the movie about Stephen Glass, I don't think it's really a "sympathetic" film - as I recall, they portray him in a mostly unflattering way, .
I believe the reasoning that has been given for having Jayson Blair speak is sort of a "lessons learned" for other journalists. Although it probably gets a little sticky letting someone profit from that, the gain for other journalists trying to ferret out that ethical line from the muck is probably worth it.
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