Stephen Glass Debate

With his mouth wide open in disbelief, a child stood by and watched his sibling being handed an expensive toy without reason. Next you would expect the child to argue about how unfair it was to give his sibling the toy when he didn't deserve it. If we were to recreate a scenario with that same ending today, the spoiled sibling would be a journalist who is being rewarded for telling lies, and the open-mouthed angry child would be his former co-worker's who believed in him.

Stephen Glass, a creative young journalist seemed to have knack for being in the right place at the right time. As a result he wrote articles that captured audiences with captivating details and quotes that made each story perfect. It wasn't until the reporters at the Forbes Digital Tool website challenged the story that Glass had wrote for The New Republic entitled "Hack Heaven" that anyone even suspected that Glass might not have been completely honest in his writing. "Hack Heaven" included scintillating dialogue between a 15-year-old computer hacker and a company who hired him after he broke into the company's computer database. Glass also described a conference he attended where he had observed other computer hackers and corporate executives congratulating the 15-year-old on a job well done.

When confronted by his editor with the suspicions raised by the Forbes Digital Tool website reporters, Glass broke down admitting that the entire story was created in his mind including attending the conference. Upon further investigation it was discovered that Glass had manipulated most of the stories he had written. He had used fake voice mails, websites and friends as his sources. Accordingly, Glass was fired from his job and many of Glass's editors, peers and readers were left feeling betrayed and disappointed and maybe even a little embarrassed for believing in the talented young writer.

Now the question remains if Stephen Glass should be allowed to receive money for making his life story into a novel, leading to the scenario of open-mouthed co-workers wondering just how fair it would be.

There are two ways of looking at this debate. The obvious argument is that Glass lied. He created non-fictional stories from fiction. He was a trusted member of journalistic world. Why should he be rewarded for bad behavior? It is probably safe to assume that most people would agree with this argument.

The other way of looking at this is he did what he set out to do. He wrote stories that captured an audience. Yes, he did lack integrity, morality and maybe he would have been better suited writing for the one of the tabloids that you find in the checkout isle of your local grocery store. He shamed the name of his former employer, and brought down several public figures with untrue stories. Yet, eight years later, we keep his legacy alive by continuing to talk about him and if he should receive payment to read the story about his deceit.

The idea of profiting from misdeeds is not new. Mumia Abu-Jamal was paid a $30,000 in advance for writing a book while in prison after being convicted of killing a Philadelphia police officer. The book was called Live From Death Row.

Another author, Audrey Kishline wrote a book for alcoholics outlining that a program for problem drinkers indicating that they can still drink in moderation and not have to submit to sobriety for the rest of their lives. Six years after writing the book, Kishline killed two victims in a traffic accident. Her alcohol level at the time was .026. She planned on writing a sequel to her first book to say that moderation doesn't work either.

Those are two extreme cases of people being allowed to profit off their victims. Who were Stephen Glass's victims and what crime did he exactly commit besides lacking human decency? A lot of his characters in his stories