Shattered Glass

[ADifferentOkie]

I searched and couldn't find a thread on this movie, though I'll bet it has been discussed on here before.
Anyway, I finally got around to watching it today. It didn't make me any more sympathetic to Stephen Glass, and I thought the movie was pretty well done, but I don't think I'll watch it again.
I have never made anything up (as it relates to journalism), but the whole time I just felt nervous watching. The movie made me feel like I was about to get caught doing something wrong.
It was amazing to see how easily he pulled that crap off.

 

[sportschick]

I love that movie. I've always wondered who it appealed to besides journalists.

On the version I watched there was a 60 minutes interview with Glass in the extras that provided more insight into why he did than what the movie gave. The movie seemed to be mostly about catching him.

 

[GBNF]

Peter Saarsgard is incredible — then again, when is he not incredible.

And Hank Azaria was damn good too...

 

[sportschick]

The most surprising performance was Hayden, although he's been decent in most everything he's done except for Star Wars.

 

[GBNF]

He gets a bit annoying to me — though I do enjoy his performance.

He's 45 times better in My Life as a House...

 

[Angola!]

I'd never heard of Stephen Glass until this thread (well, maybe I'd heard of him on this site, but I didn't know who/what he was), so I hit the google and found this fascinating story:

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2003/0307.chait.html

 

[JackReacher]

We watched that movie in one of my reporting classes a couple semesters ago. It was decent. It's amazing what people can get away with.

 

[sportschick]

He gets a bit annoying to me — though I do enjoy his performance.

He's 45 times better in My Life as a House...

He was amazing in life as a house, although it was another kind of whiney brat role.

 

[Fenian_Bastard]

I know some of the folks involved, but one detail's always bothered me. I thought that, prior to the Glass fiasco, TNR didn't HAVE fact-checkers. (The copy editors functioned as them.) I thought that was one of the things that was brought out in the aftermath.

 

[Write-brained]

I know some of the folks involved, but one detail's always bothered me. I thought that, prior to the Glass fiasco, TNR didn't HAVE fact-checkers. (The copy editors functioned as them.) I thought that was one of the things that was brought out in the aftermath.

That and the stories were so sensational that it's hard to imagine he wasn't pressed more for information.

I've read a few of the stories. They're not particularly well written. They're surprisingly clunky. Hindsight is 20/20, but it's hard to read them now and imagine they didn't raise red flags.

I really like the movie and am glad they made it, but as Sportschick said - I can't imagine a lot of people outside of journalism found it interesting.

 

[Write-brained]

May 18, 1998

WASHINGTON SCENE: HACK HEAVEN

By Stephen Glass

Ian Restil, a 15-year-old computer hacker who looks like an even
more adolescent version of Bill Gates, is throwing a tantrum. "I
want more money. I want a Miata. I want a trip to Disney World. I
want X-Man comic [book] number one. I want a lifetime subscription
to Playboy, and throw in Penthouse. Show me the money! Show me the
money!" Over and over again, the boy, who is wearing a frayed Cal
Ripken Jr. t-shirt, is shouting his demands. Across the table,
executives from a California software firm called Jukt Micronics
are listening--and trying ever so delicately to oblige. "Excuse
me, sir," one of the suits says, tentatively, to the pimply
teenager. "Excuse me. Pardon me for interrupting you, sir. We can
arrange more money for you. Then, you can buy the [comic] book,
and then, when you're of more, say, appropriate age, you can buy
the car and pornographic magazines on your own."

It's pretty amazing that a 15-year-old could get a big-time
software firm to grovel like that. What's more amazing, though, is
how Ian got Jukt's attention--by breaking into its databases. In
March, Restil--whose nom de plume is "Big Bad Bionic Boy"--used a
computer at his high school library to hack into Jukt. Once he got
past the company's online security system, he posted every
employee's salary on the company's website alongside more than a
dozen pictures of naked women, each with the caption: "the big bad
bionic boy has been here baby." After weeks of trying futilely to
figure out how Ian cracked the security program, Jukt's engineers
gave up. That's when the company came to Ian's Bethesda, Maryland,
home--to hire him.

 

[ADifferentOkie]

The quote from the lawyer is what would have raised the red flag for me. That just doesn't sound like a real person speaking, but more like a character in a bad book or movie.