Shattered Glass Essay

Ashley Desrochers
February 13, 2009
Block two
Shattered Glass Essay
Credibility can be defined as the ability to be trusted or have confidence in. Trust is something that is treasured in any relationship. When trust is broken it hurts many people. In the film “Shattered Glass” the main character Stephen Glass portrayed himself as a trustworthy man. He sat in board meetings and told stories upon stories that nobody seemed to have heard before, later to be discovered he imagined more than 20 of his articles. Glass hurt many people in the process of finding out his faults. He hurt his co-workers, his fans and readers, as well as himself.
His co-workers trusted him, they felt that the old editor was admirable and when the new editor took over they were all very upset. The only one willing to apologize for his actions was Glass, “I’m really sorry about yesterday I didn’t know how to react”, he said. This was thought to be a noble move, but the audience later finds out that this was a part of his act. Throughout the film the audience views the co-workers talking about the new editor, in trust the co-workers believed that they were speaking with a truthful man. When Glass was found to be a liar his co-workers were in denial. They believed that his stories were legitimate and found that he couldn’t be trusted at all. Glass’s lies hurt his co-workers.
In the beginning of the film the audience views Glass guest speaking to an assumed high school class. A female student before he had the opportunity to say what article he was telling a story about wrote the name of it on her notes, and smile when he mentioned it moments later. His fans were captured by his stories. They were amusing and interesting and they grabbed a reader like many other journalist couldn’t it seemed. When Glass was found to be a fake we can only assume his fans and readers were upset. They trusted in his literature and found that they had been betrayed and lied to. We can assume that the readers were hurt to find that their favorite journalist was a fraud.
Glass hurt himself as well. He hurt his credibility which means that he forever will be “googled” as “the one who isn’t credible”. In this day and time to lose the trust of a major company you lose the trust of many others. The likelihood of Glass being hired for another paper is very little. Glass hurt his career, the relationships in his family, and the relationships he had with his friends. This incredibility and distrust may last a life time for Glass.
In conclusion, for Glass lying about his articles was not the best choice he could have made. The audience learned that credibility is very important and that lying just isn’t worth the time and effort. The moral of the story is to find the truth in stories, research what you read before you believe it, and understand that there is always a chance that you have come in contact with a master mind liar.