Throwing stones at Glass houses: News fabrication pitfalls

Everyone enjoys a good story, a creative novel spun together with compelling characters and an addictive plot. These stories are not meant for the newsroom, where the interest is delivering the facts free from fiction. This introduction of fiction into the newsroom is what resulted in one of the most well-known scandals in journalism history and it began with a man named Stephen Glass.

Glass was a reporter for The New Republic, a Washington D.C. publication, from 1995 to 1998. It was in May, 1998 that one of his stories was called into question and set in motion the downward spiral that led to his dismissal from the publication.

In the May 18, 1998 issue of The New Republic a story written by Glass, titled “Hack Heaven,” was published. This story chronicled how a 15-year-old computer hacker, Ian Restil, hacked into the database of Jukt Micronics, a supposedly large-scale computer software company based in California. The article then continued to detail how rather than pressing charges, the company tried to employ Restil to handle information security due to his computer skills.

This story did not sit so well with Adam Penenberg, a journalist for Forbes Digital Tool. Penenberg’s writing mainly concerned cybercrime and hacking. He began to investigate the sources and companies that Glass referred to in his article. What he uncovered was a fabrication so complete that it rivaled that of “Jimmy’s World” by Janet Cooke.

Penenberg said that “It wasn’t until my editor dissed me that I decided I’d better look into the story. Not because I suspected it was fabricated. I figured I’d better learn about it if I’m going to cover the same beat. Then I couldn’t find the company Glass based his story on, and that of course led me on a rather crazy journey.”

Jukt Micronics, a main component of Glass’s story, did not exist. Glass did, however, create a fake web page for the company. When Penenberg called the number for the company that Glass supplied, he spoke to a “Jukt executive.” This executive turned out to be Glass’s brother posing as an employee of the so-called company. Furthermore, Penenberg was unable to find anyone who had ever heard of Ian Restil.

Numerous other facts in the story did not check out either. The room where Glass was said to have sat in on a conference between Restil and Jukt Micronics was closed on the day Glass said the meeting took place. Glass had written in the article that Nevada’s law enforcement aired a radio announcement pleading with the public not to conduct business with hackers. Penenberg stated that he was unable to locate any law enforcement official in Nevada who had knowledge of these radio announcements.

Glass also referenced in his article The National Assembly of Hackers, Computer Security Center and the Center for Interstate Online Investigations. Penenberg, along with Forbes Digital Tool, was unable to confirm that any of these existed. Their research was thorough, checking for the existence of these assemblies and initiatives through police departments, the FBI, the U.S. Customs Department and the Justice Department.

Nothing was verifiable. The story was a complete fabrication of Glass’s mind.

Forbes contacted Charles Lane, editor at The New Republic, to notify him of the results of Penenberg’s investigation. Lane had been unaware that there were any questions regarding the credibility of Glass’s story.

Glass was dismissed from The New Republic two days later after Lane conducted his own check of Glass’s story. Forbes reported that Lane stated “Based on my own investigations, I have determined to a moral certainty that the entire article is made up.”

Upon further scrutiny, The New Republic found that at least 24 of the 41 stories Glass wrote for the publication contained either fabricated material, or information that could not be confirmed. Following this discovery Glass was also fired from his journalistic positions at Harper’s Magazine and at George’s Magazine, where it was revealed that he fabricated quotes in a profile he wrote about Vernon Jordan. He was also dismissed as a freelance reporter for the Washington Post.

In 2003 the film “Shattered Glass,” directed by Billy Ray, was released, depicting the scandal that took place at The New Republic with the serial fabricator.

Scandals such as this, where an entire fabricated story is published, call into question the editorial staff. Newsrooms may function on the assumption that the stories written are based on fact, yet cases like this or Janet Cooke or Jayson Blair place doubt on the reliability of not only the journalist, but the editors as well.

Lane acknowledged the editorial shortcomings in 1998, the Washington Post reported him saying”we should have done a better job. There’s no way around that.”

In a recent interview, Adam Penenberg commented on the ability of Glass to have his article published with no questions asked.

“You have to wonder how Glass was able to get away with it for so long,” he said. “At Forbes, where I worked at the time, I doubt he’d ever have gotten away with it. A fact-checker or editor would have wondered how come they had never heard of a ‘big time’ software firm in California. He’d be asked, is it public? Private? How many employees? Where’s it based? What are its revenues, etc. Why didn’t TNR editors do that?”

The New Republic editorial staff overlooked the possibility that the story was a sham in favor of publishing a fictitious story that would capture the attention of an audience. While Penenberg acknowledged the lack of fact checking in Glass’s story on part of The New Republic, he maintained that the blame still rests on the journalist.

Penenberg stated “Editors should be able to trust their reporters. It’s this violation of trust that is the most distressing aspect of plagiarism.”

Penenberg, a professor of journalism and director of the business and economic program at New York University and author of the NYU journalism handbook, offered advice to aspiring journalists and editors who find themselves in ethical dilemmas that walk the line between originality and plagiarism or fabrication.

“I find it’s good practice to imagine someone peering over your shoulder, reading every word you write” he said. “Are you putting forth your best effort or are you cutting corners? Are the words you’re writing and the ideas you’re expressing genuinely your own? Is there a possibility that someone might misconstrue something you’ve written? And if that doesn’t work, follow this simple rule: When in doubt, attribute your source. Works every time.”

 

 

This article can also be found on The Circle website at http://www.maristcircle.com/features/throwing-stones-at-glass-houses-news-fabrication-pitfalls-1.2717570?pagereq=1#.TtV-GvIf6Q4

Stephen Glass Scandal: Learn from the lies

The article concerning Stephen Glass and his fabrication in The New Republic has been submitted for publication in The Circle. This marks the approaching end of the series. There are only two articles that will remain after the Glass story has been published.

The article on Stephen Glass was a fun one to write because it was this case that began my interest in scandals in journalism back in high school. I remember watching Shattered Glass in class and discussing it and wondering how it was that he published so many stories that were false, fake people, fake situations, fiction altogether. My prior interest in this particular scandal made it one of the most exciting ones for me to write.

I found reading Glass’s fabricated stories and researching how he was finally caught to be both fascinating and disgraceful to journalism. This story was also one of the more successful ones as well. Although, as I had predicted initially, The New Republic did not respond to my emails or comment when called about the topic, I was able to find a source that was invaluable to my story.

Adam Penenberg, the man who discovered the fabrication in Glass’s story “Hack Heaven” responded to my email and I was able to conduct an interview with him on the topic. The interview with Penenberg was exactly what my story needed because it addressed the issue of whether editors are at fault as well when stories such as “Hack Heaven” make it to print. The analysis of this can be found in the article on Glass. However I would like to consider another aspect of the interview – why Glass fabricated these stories.

I asked Penenberg if he thought the pressures of the newsroom and pressing deadlines could have led to Glass’s storytelling.

He responded saying “I don’t think so. I just think it’s laziness. You don’t hear of many wire service reporters being busted for plagiarism. It’s authors, magazine writers, newspaper reporters and columnists. They have much more lenient deadlines.”

This laziness was something that I touched upon in a previous blog post concerning why journalists choose to fabricate or plagiarize the news. A study by Dominic Lasorsa and Jia Dai(2007) stated that “writing deceptive news is less cognitively challenging than writing accurate news” (Lasorsa and Dai, 2007). They attribute this to the disposition of the journalist, who is “not motivated to produce accurate and fair stories” (Lasorsa and Dai, 2007).

The work Glass produced, however, was more than a lack of fair or accurate reporting. He published lies and served them to the public as truth. His stories, however, were entertaining. “Hack Heaven” for example was shocking and humorous at the same time. Had this been a story I randomly read in the paper, I would never had thought to question it because I enjoyed reading it.

Mats Ekstrom (2000)  studied this, saying that “journalism sometimes attains legitimacy in the eyes of its audiences by providing pleasure, diversion and escapism” (Ekstrom, 2000).

Glass’s stories, in my opinion, were written to entertain. Rather than seeking out truly entertaining and captivating stories, Glass relied on his imagination to do the work for him. My beliefs on this were compiled into one quote I read in a study by Harvey Molotch and Merilyn Lester (1974) when they said “those with purposes produce propaganda; those whose only purpose is to reflect reality, produce news” (Molotch and Lester, 1974).

I find this quote to summarize what was the case, in my mind, concerning Glass. He had an agenda and the news around him did not fit that agenda. Therefore, he abandoned truth and reality and instead sought to provide the audience with what he thought they would prefer: entertaining fiction.

Fiction is why we buy novels, not why we read newspapers.

This story, all in all, was one of my favorite articles to write so far because I felt a certain inclination toward writing on Glass. The next two articles, reporting on scandals that have taken place in the 21st century, will be the final installments of the Scandalism series.

Keep reading, keep writing and keep seeking the truth!

Also, here’s a trailer for the film that first brought my attention to the Stephen Glass scandal, enjoy.

Penalties absent in 90s-era plagiarism cases

Journalists sometimes fall under the pressures of the newsroom. They may lie, plagiarize or fabricate a story entirely. In many cases, this results in dismissal from the publication. But many do not know that some journalists choose to fight back. One such journalist was Jonathan Kandell.

Kandell, author of “La Capital: The Biography of Mexico City” and “Passage through El Dorado” was a foreign correspondent and assistant foreign editor for the Wall Street Journal in 1990. He was fired from the Journal after an article was printed on March 30, 1990 for which he was accused of plagiarism. Kandell’s article concerned three Soviet managers who succeeded despite how communism was restraining them.

After publication, the Journal was contacted by the author of the book “Communist Entrepreneurs,” John W. Kiser III. Kiser stated that Kandell’s article was “obviously drawn almost entirely” from his book and provided lines from his book as proof of Kandell’s plagiarism.

Although Kandell denied that he used Kiser’s material, the Journal dismissed him from their staff on May 2, 1990 and printed a correction that stated the article should have included attribution to Kiser’s book.

After dismissal, Kandell fought back against the Journal. On May 22, 1990, Kandell filed a lawsuit in the Court for the Southern District of New York against Dow Jones & Company, the publisher of the Wall Street Journal. Kandell filed his suit under the claim of libel because he was fired and his reputation was damaged due to the charge of plagiarism, which he said was a false charge. He demanded $12.64 million from Dow Jones & Company, $10 million of which was in punitive damages and $2.64 million as reparation for actual malice on part of the Journal.

Roger B. May, the spokesman for Dow Jones at the time, told the press that Kandell had been dismissed, but he declined to go into further detail about the conditions surrounding the dismissal. May also said the managing editor of that time, Norman Pearlstine, would not comment on the issue.

This case, however, was voluntarily dismissed on June 20, 1990. The attorney of Dow Jones & Company stated that the paper could not be accused of libel because Kandell was never formally accused of plagiarism by the publication. The paper, therefore, could not be held accountable or sued for libel based upon the public’s interpretation of Kandell’s dismissal from the Journal.

While this case did not result in a compelling battle in court of Kandell vs. Dow Jones, it shows a different side of journalism scandals. While there are those journalists who accept that they have done something wrong and try to move on with their lives, some choose to fight for their reputation.

Carol Pauli, professor of mass communication law at Marist College, commented on the decision to go to court, saying that “It’s a gamble because you can lose; most would prefer to settle outside of court” and that, in the case of Kandell vs. Dow Jones, it would be hard to prove that the Journal was grossly negligent, so Kandell would have had “a hard time prevailing.”

The Wall Street Journal was unavailable for comment on this issue.

While it may be hard for a journalist to prevail in court against a publication, Kandell was neither the first nor the last to attempt to do so. In December 1998, journalist Thomas Vincent was dismissed from the South China Morning Post after it was found out that an article he wrote was plagiarized almost entirely from an earlier article in London’s Sunday Times.

Vincent filed a lawsuit against the publication in court in Hong Kong. Vincent did not deny the plagiarism; however, he claimed that he was not dismissed with enough prior warning and that he deserved payment and pension from the South China Morning Post. He was awarded $21,978 initially. The publication brought the case to the Hong Kong Court of Appeals in 2003, which reversed the prior ruling.

The Post was awarded all court costs for the case; however, they were still required to pay Vincent the end of the year payments, as stated in his contract with the Post.

Kandell plagiarized and then continued his career in journalism, later working for The New York Times. Vincent plagiarized and was able to sue the publication and receive monetary compensation for his dismissal. Both reporters committed offenses against the field of journalism and were able to continue on with their lives. This raises the issue of how plagiarism is sometimes treated as a less than serious offense. Yet it is one that is now also more accessible than ever as news and information is constantly posted, uploaded and updated online.

Today, websites such as http://turnitin.com seek to eliminate plagiarism through the Internet. Using others words without attribution, however, still continues.

“There’s unfortunate confusion that when people Google something and see a phrase over and over again, they think that’s how it’s done,” Pauli said. “The dangerous part is the easy ability to cut and paste.”

The Washington Post addressed this danger when they printed their new “Digital Publishing Guidelines.” Patrick B. Pexton, current ombudsman for the Washington Post, stated that the Post recently published these new guidelines on their website. The guidelines address the issues of sourcing, attribution, self-publishing, taste and tone, social media, third-party content and corrections and clarifications in digital publication.

The guidelines state that “In a major news event, readers may soon forget who first broke a story, but they are less likely to forget a devastating inaccuracy.”

Plagiarism, as seen in both of the cases considered here, is an inaccuracy that is continually brought up in the news and that will resonate in the public’s mind long after they forget who originally got the story straight.

 

 

This article is available in The Circle in print and on the website at http://www.maristcircle.com/features/penalties-absent-in-90s-era-plagiarism-cases-1.2705450?pagereq=1#.TsruP2uur9E

Plagiarism strikes again

I am currently working on an article on Jonathan Kandell. He was a foreign correspondent for the Wall Street Journal who also plagiarized a story by failing to attribute large portions of it. I was hoping to take this story in a different direction than the others, although this is currently proving to be difficult.

Kandell tried to sue to Wall Street Journal after dismissal. I wanted to focus this article on the lawsuit and look into the case proceedings and how everything turned out. The problem with that was, I did not have access to the files.

I made a PACER account. Problem solved? Nope. It turned out the case was voluntarily dismissed by Kandell, so basically the suit never amounted to anything. This sort of put a large wall in front of my story and where I had hoped it would lead.

I have emailed the Wall Street Journal, two WSJ editors and filled out a query form for The Dow Jones and Co. I am hoping that this leads to useful information that can give my story more of an up-to-date take on the issue. The skeleton of the story is written, there is just an element missing.

I have been able to speak to one source about plagiarism in the news and that will prove to be useful for this story, however it would make the entire story more newsworthy if I was able to speak to someone at WSJ or The Dow Jones. So that’s where I’m at now on the Kandell story. I will admit that this story has been more than disheartening to write, especially after the last one where I was able to get such useful information from my sources.

Despite these setbacks, the story on Kandell will provide a different look into plagiarism in journalism and what happens thereafter for both the journalist and the publication. Keep reading the blog for more updates!