Truth and Honesty in Journalism: Stephen Glass

Background:
Ideally, journalism should strive to tell the absolute truth to the people. However, in
the application, this ideal often cannot be fulfilled because the circumstances forced
them into falsehoods. We expect journalists to be unbiased and to report the truth, but
sometimes, due to surviving their companys prestige and protecting defamation, they
write on something that is not the real facts. Or sometimes, being in a job that requires
working under pressure and such a tight deadlines, forced journalists to fake news
because lacking of reverences and data.

For example in the case of Stephen Glass. He is a former U.S. journalist who achieved
notoriety in 1998 when it was revealed that as many as half of his published articles
were fabrications. Glass invented quotations, sources, and even entire events in
articles he wrote for that magazine and others. Most of Glass's articles were of the
entertaining and humorous type; some were based entirely on fictional events. He had
his career rising at the age of 25 as a journalist and associate editor of The New
Republic (TNR) in Washington. Readers were at first fascinated by his writings
because of the interesting topics, but later editors in TNR realized that most of his
works were product of lies. After the investigation, it was revealed that Glasss works
were 27 out of 41 full of fabrications, therefore destroying a portion of the alwaysfragile bond of trust journalists try to form with their readers. (ada kutipan sumber).
Literature Review:

http://www.journalism.org/resources/principles-of-journalism/
and
http://www.americanpressinstitute.org/journalism-essentials/what-isjournalism/elements-journalism/

Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel identify the essential principles and practices
of journalism, in their book The Elements of Journalism. There are 10 of them, and
the first one is: Journalisms first obligation is to the truth.
In this element, it is explained that:
Good decision-making depends on people having reliable, accurate
facts put in a meaningful context. Journalism does not pursue truth in an
absolute or philosophical sense, but in a capacity that is more down to earth.
All truths even the laws of science are subject to revision, but we
operate by them in the meantime because they are necessary and they work,
Kovach and Rosenstiel write in the book. Journalism, they continue, thus
seeks a practical and functional form of truth. It is not the truth in the
absolute or philosophical or scientific sense but rather a pursuit of the truths
by which we can operate on a day-to-day basis.
This journalistic truth is a process that begins with the professional
discipline of assembling and verifying facts. Then journalists try to convey a
fair and reliable account of their meaning, subject to further investigation.
Journalists should be as transparent as possible about sources and
methods so audiences can make their own assessment of the information. Even
in a world of expanding voices, getting it right is the foundation upon which
everything else is built context, interpretation, comment, criticism, analysis
and debate. The larger truth, over time, emerges from this forum.
As citizens encounter an ever-greater flow of data, they have more
need not less for suppliers of information dedicated to finding and

verifying the news and putting it in context. (CITED)

Ethics in Media Communications: Cases and Controversies by Louis A. Day.
In this book, it is explained about a world of limited truth, and shows a lot of
cases that is related to the truth and honesty in journalism. Also, it cited a media
practitioners and the truth-falsehood dichotomy, where it tells about truth in
journalism: the Standard of Journalistic Truth, and Where Truth and Fiction

Collide: the Docudrama.

The Case of Stephen Glass: from a lot of literature reviews.

Essay Question:
Methodology:
Discussion:
Conclusion:
Limitation:
Bibliography:

What we are talking here that journalists are facing is not

merely a plagiarism, which mean copying others work and
mentioned that it was their own. Instead, professional
journalism isnt facing a plagiarism problem. Its facing an
originality failure. And you cant blame the Internet. Our
originality breakdown results from many pressures the
overwhelming volume of writing incessantly pushed out into
the digital space, the pressure on writers to feed a content
beast thats never satiated, the diminishing economic forces
that support professional writing. (

http://www.poynter.org/latest-

news/everyday-ethics/189900/journalism-has-an-originality-problem-not-aplagiarism-problem/).

There are more plagiarisms in journalism today than there was

20 years ago.
Before the Internet, newsrooms were lucky enough to stumble
into a method for growing writers. It wasnt perfect and there

certainly were scandals, such as when The Washington Posts

Janet Cooke fabricated a character in a story that went on to
win the Pulitzer, or when Boston Globe columnist Mike Barnicle
stole material from comedian George Carlin and others.
These days, it feels like hardly a week goes by without a
professional journalist being exposed for plagiarism, fabrication
or patchwriting, which is a failed attempt at paraphrasing that
over-relies on the original writers syntax and vocabulary.
Were mystified by the prospect of building a culture that
breeds original thinking and writing in todays digital world.
Yet, we can look to writers who are successfully hitting the
mark of originality and imitate their methods.
If were going to solve the problem of unoriginal writing, we
need to focus on the process of writing, instead of simply
careening from one failure to another.