Seeking for Truth (a Reaction Paper from the Film Shattered Glass)

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Truth I’ve learned in class that truth-telling is essential for us rational human beings to make informed decisions. From the choice we make comes our will to tell the truth (or vice versa). We say journalists have this obligation to the public to deliver the truth. We also say that journalists should bear in mind that any inaccurate or untruthful information will violate an audience right to truthful information. In the film Shattered Glass, journalist Stephen Glass violated not only truth-telling but also a number of ethical principles. For one, Stephen Glass fabricated stories. At times, even if his stories were true, he fabricated his sources making it partially made up – still, an act of dishonesty. This act of dishonesty or giving of information while believing it to be untrue falls under the concept of lying. A lie communicates some information and the liar intends to deceive or mislead though he believes that what he is 'saying' is not true. All these were attributed by Stephen Glass and in the act he has done. He lied to his editor, to his colleagues, and to these thousands of people reading his articles. We all know for a fact that “...when it comes to journalism, honesty is always the best policy. It is totally unacceptable for a journalist to fabricate anything in an article, as the public believes the lies”. Respect "I loved the electricity of people liking my stories. I loved going to story conference meetings and telling people what my story was going to be, and seeing the room excited. I wanted every story to be a home run”, Stephen Glass said in an interview with Steve Kroft of CBS – this could have made us believe that, first, Stephen Glass’ excessive hunger for success compelled him to create fiction and to tell lies in order to be liked. According to the film, Stephen Glass grew up in a strict family. Glass said his parents always wanted

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