otherwise - that perhaps the media operate under next to no oversight, that they are
rarely held accountable, and that only egregious lying over a protracted interval
eventually risks discovery and exposure. Had Stephen Glass been just a little less
of a liar, had he more often tempered his lies, more often redirected them from the
powerful to the powerless, he would today not only still be working as a reporter,
but winning prizes. Thus, the example of Stephen Glass serves to demonstrate the
viability of the hypothesis that misinformation and disinformation in the media is
widespread, and that the three examples mentioned above, and the many more documented
throughout the Ukrainian Archive, may not be exceptional deviations at all, but
rather the tip of an iceberg in an industry which is largely unregulated, which is
largely lacking internal mechanisms of quality control, which is responsive not to
truth, but to the dictates of ruling forces.
Another question which may be asked is whether Stephen Glass is the product of some
sub-culture which condones or encourages lying, or which even offers training in
lying.
The following excerpts, then, are from Buzz Bissinger, Shattered Glass, Vanity Fair,
September, 1998, pp. 176-190. The quoted portions are in gray boxes; the headings in
navy blue, however, have been introduced in the UKAR posting, and were not in the
original. I now present to you Stephen Glass largely on the possibility that our new
understanding of Stephen Glass will deepen our existing understanding of other
record-breaking, media-manipulating liars that have been featured on the Ukrainian
Archive, ones such as Yaakov Bleich, Morley Safer, Neal Sher, Elie Wiesel, and Simon
Wiesenthal.
One precondition of exceptional lying may be an intellectual mediocrity which puts a
low ceiling on the success that can be achieved through licit means. Thus, Stephen
Glass, although performing well in high school, began to perform poorly in University,
and when he began work as a reporter, was discovered to not know how to write:
Glass began his studies at the University of Pennsylvania in 1990 on a pre-medical
curriculum. According to various accounts, he held his own at the beginning. But
then his grades nose-dived. He apparently flunked one course and barely passed
another, suggesting that he had simply lost interest in being on a pre-med track,
or had done poorly on purpose to shut the door to any future career in medicine.
Glass ultimately majored in anthropology. He reportedly did well in this area of
study, but given his inconsistent performance in pre-med courses, his overall
grade-point average at Penn was hardly distinguished - slightly less than a B.
"His shit wasn't always as together as everyone thought it was," said Matthew
Klein, who roomed with Glass at Penn when he was a senior and Glass a junior.
There were indicators to Klein that Glass was not doing particularly well
academically, but Glass never acknowledged it. "He always said he was doing fine,
doing fine," said Klein. (pp. 185-186)
Those familiar with his early work said he struggled with his writing. His
original drafts were rough, the prose clunky and imprecise. (p. 186)
A second precondition of exceptional lying may be growing up in a subculture which
encourages lying, or merely condones it, or at least does not actively work to
suppress it. The Bissinger article offers us next to no information on this topic, except
for the following brief statement:
Harvard educator Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot spent a good deal of time at Highland
Park High School researching her 1983 book, The Good High School: Portraits of
Character and Culture. She was impressed with the school's stunning academic
programs but noted that values such as character and morality were sometimes
little more than brushstrokes against the relentlessness of achievement. (p. 185)
The first steps on the path to high achievement in lying will, of course, be timid and
cautious, but when the lack of repercussions is discovered, will become bolder:
At first the made-up parts were relatively small. Fictional details were
melded with mostly factual stories. Quotes and vignettes were constructed to add
the edge Kelly seemed to adore. But in the March 31, 1997, issue of The New
Republic, Glass raised the stakes with a report about the Conservative Political
Action Conference. Eight young men, Glass claimed, men with names such as Jason
and Michael, were drinking beer and smoking pot. They went looking for "the
ugliest and loneliest" woman they could find, lured her to their hotel room, and
sexually humiliated her. The piece, almost entirely an invention, was spoken of
with reverence. Subsequent to it, Glass's work began to appear in George, Rolling
Stone, and Harper's.
But challenges to Glass's veracity followed. David A. Keene, chairman of the
American Conservative Union, called Glass "quite a fiction writer" and noted that
the description of the Omni Shoreham room littered with empty bottles from the
