why you don't make stuff up

That Star Wars guy in "Shattered Glass."

So this is a bit of a downer, but it's important and interesting:
Don't make stuff up.

That's about the only rule in journalism. It's hard and fast. Every news story -- narrative or otherwise -- carries the unstated opening of, "What you are about to read is true." That's what the reader expects. That is the starting point. And from there, the world is your oyster.

Journalism does not tolerate plagiarists, fakers, liars, fakers.

Take the case of Stephen Glass. Remember him?


He was a celebrated narrative writer in the mid-1990s who got caught making stuff up. Not just a few things, but entire stories. ENTIRE STORIES. It's kinda amazing, especially in this age of Google, when such schemes would seem to be harder to pull off. But still.

So, you think, he did that. Fine. Did he go to jail? Nope. The stain on his reputation has followed him into his new career as an attorney. The California Bar just denied him entrance to the state bar because of what he did as a journalist -- and his continuing problems of fessing up to what he did.

The reporter who first caught Glass recently recalled how it went down.

And the whole thing was a 2003 movie.