Stephen Glass is an ambitious writer at New Republic who fabricated half of his articles to get a great story. He was liked by his fellow staffers because he has a good sense of humor and is quite friendly with everyone in his staff. His first strike was forgiven by his first editor, Michael Kelly. Michael owns the trust and loyalty of the staff because he really protects and defends his writers. His staff loves him because he is sociable and approachable. Michael was quite successful as in editor, in terms of maintaining good relationships within his staff. He was able to earn the love and loyalty of his writers. He was able to earn the honesty and trust of his writers. But he made a mistake, and that mistake was when he let a simple err slip by. Stephen made a small err where at first he lied to Michael but afterward he confessed and was forgiven. But as soon as Michael got fired, things changed not only for him but for the whole staff. Charles Lane took the place of the editor. He was often called “Chuck”. Unlike Michael, Chuck was rather firm and strict with his staff; h never let a mistake slip by. He trains his staff well. He disciplines them whenever he needs to. At first, everyone was against Chuck being editor. It always appeared to the staff that Chuck envied Michael because the loyalty of the staff has always been for him even after Chuck replaced him as editor. Chuck would stand up for what is right; he would stand up for the magazine, not the writer. Chuck was able to find out the whole truth about Stephen’s articles; that half of his work was fiction, he was able to gather all the evidence that would prove that Stephen’s works are fiction. This ruptured the image of Stephen Glass when New Republic made a print out that 27 of his articles were fabricated. Time went by and he graduated from law school and later on he wrote a book called “Fabulist” where he featured his life as a journalist who didn’t know how to how to handle his ambitiousness and managed to fabricate most of his articles.
Stephen Glass became quite successful although not as a journalist but as a lawyer. As I was watching the movie, I could not distinguish any difference between his two editors, I couldn’t even understand it enough but as the movie ended and as I thought about it, it somehow made sense. I can really relate with the story, not just because I am a journalist but because the happenings in the story are applicable to common life situations. Michael was a good editor in terms that he really cares for his staff, as I’ve mentioned above, he was able maintain good personal relationships with his staff, but he was not successful in training them, particularly Stephen Glass. Agreed, that Glass’ mistake the first time was only mild but Michael failed to give him a writer – editor talk where he would learn that he was not supposed to include false facts in his pieces because his it would be raised as true facts. On the other hand, Charles Lane was the opposite of Michael; Chuck was prudent in treating his staff. When Chuck found out about Glass’ suspicious source, he immediately sought to figure what was wrong and as long as he wasn’t convinced that Glass was telling the truth, he would resume in his investigation. Chuck was furious when found out that Glass lied to him dozens of times. At first, he only planned to suspend Glass, but after he found out that Glass really did dupe the Magazine and that there were plenty more articles that Glass made up, he decided to really fire him. As an editor, Chuck was successful in maintaining the integrity and honesty of the publication. He cared about the magazine more than anything. For me, he was a greater editor than Michael. I find Chuck dignified and a blue blood journalist. I think what brought Glass to commit as big a mistake as this is that he was let go quickly the first time he done it. If I was in Chuck’s place, I would definitely do the same thing as he did because the fact that he already committed too many lies and after being caught still denies it is a good reason to believe that the writer is no longer worthy to be in the publication. If the writer already committed that much of a lie to his editor it would mean that he no longer have respect for his editor and being that, it means the relationship between writer and editor is already tarnished. I like Chuck better because what he implements in the desk is dignity and honesty as journalists, it doesn’t stop him even if the whole staff hate him for it, he stands for what he believes in and I think that is one characteristic that every journalist should know.
Aside from the lesson the story gives to journalists or people who aspire to be journalists, I think there is more to the story than that. There are times when we commit small mistakes, we commit white lies. These small mistakes are often looked over by people because as we say it is only little mistakes and after all we are human and humans can’t help but err. But as time passes by, we fail to notice it but we seem to do the same mistakes but this time the level of sin is doubled or sometime tripled. These little mistakes sometimes lead to chaos, just like what happened to Glass. Once these little mistakes become big, we can never admit it to any one even if we were caught with the act, we would always find a way to get an escape goat. An example is my indolence to go to school or sometimes to mass. Let me take in to consideration the mass first, let us say that today was Sunday, if I was attacked by laziness, I would tell myself, I will attend mass next week, I have many important things to do today, when in fact the whole day will pass and I have not done the things that I was going to do and the second Sunday would come and I would again say that I have things to do. Another is my indolence to come to school if my class is 7:30 in the morning , I just lay in bed saying to myself that at 6:00 I’ll get up, but it will end out at 6:40 which means that I would have to get to school late. Or even sometimes at school, when we are asked to check our own paper, there was this one time that I got all the answers right except for one, if you were somebody who really wants to get really high grades; someone who is really ambitious then you would cheat for it, although it’s just a white lies, it’s still a lie, there might even come a time when you are tempted to cheat big time because you are aspiring to achieve something big, and it’s not even about being a good enough student or a good enough writer or journalist, it’ about fulfilling your goal. And for people like me who are just too ambitious, it really can’t be helped.
For me, the importance of having two wholly different editors in the story was to distinguish the two common personalities, which are the introvert and extrovert. The extrovert is the noisy one; the friendly one; the one who cares about what others think of him, in the story he would be Michael, the one whom people likes. The introvert is the quiet one; the one who nobody gives credit to, that is Chuck. As I see it Chuck was a good writer, back before he was promoted editor, but even then when he was made editor, some said that he was barely a writer, why should he be editor? The thing is, the other staff was a bit biased to Chuck because they indeed loved Michael. I think I can apply that to real life, when we don’t like somebody, we make it seem like if something is wrong, it’s like it’s their fault. Once we do not like somebody we always find something negative about them but if we like someone, even if they do something bad, we always find a way to dig them out of the trouble they got themselves into. I think that is what happened in the case of Glass and Chuck. Glass was loved by everyone that is why they all took his word for it even though it was pretty clear that his articles were suspicious, at that time it became pretty obvious that Glass was lying but they did not take that stance. Chuck on the other hand, even though he was a good editor, his staff doesn’t seem to mind; they don’t seem to care about that, what they care about is their sentiment that they would always prefer Mike instead of him. He had enough to show to say that half of the pieces of Glass was fiction but no one in the staff would tender that because they see him boring, no sense of humor, perhaps they also see him as a perfectionist which he is not. According to my own opinion, people these days don’t know what a perfectionist is anymore. When people someone with the right values or someone who is disciplined, they then assume that he is a perfectionist. We are just too undisciplined. And to be a journalist, we must eradicate that attitude because it is required of us to be fair and unbiased and to do so we must be disciplined. In writing a story, we are always tempted to write something even if it means being biased if it is going to get us a good story, so in order to avoid being that, we must learn to discipline ourselves .
I just thought to myself that if all journalists in the world were like Chuck then maybe there would be peace in the world because if every journalist was like chuck then people would not be blinded from the truth and truth will be the only thing that will prevail. As of now, I am thinking of Chuck as an inspiration. I want to imitate his attitude toward journalism. I want to be as firm as he is.
ethereal 