“Shattered Glass” is great for bringing to students’ attention the great importance of checking facts and quotes, and circling back to verify information from sources. Also a good time to ask, “How do we check our own stories? Who should check a story, and what should be checked?”
A timely (and unfortunate) tie-in to the Stephen Glass story from a few months ago is the dismissal of Jonah Lehrer from the New Yorker for his falsification of quotes attributed to Bob Dylan.
Last week, another example emerged: the dismissal of a 59-year-old reporter for the Cap Cod Times, who had been found to have invented sources and quotes (something Poynter referred to as “serial fabrication”) for more than a decade.