Credibility concepts and applications

Credibility in Journalism

They say that the art of storytelling is dying, but apparently not if modern journalism has anything to say bout it. From Jayson Blair to Patricia Smith to Stephen Glass, the news has become less about what is and more about what one can make of it. These journalists have all been recently caught not merely stretching the truth or omitting the mention of a potential bias in their stories -- common though still unacceptable indiscretions in many newsrooms -- but of completely making things up, including entire stories. In Blair's case, the journalist "covered" entire stories without ever leaving Brooklyn, or even his apartment. Patricia Smith made up names of phantom interviewees, as well as what they said, just to make her stories more powerful. Glass did the same thing, but went even farther by imagining entire scenarios that he "witnessed" and used as the central points in his "news" stories.

In the 2003 film Shattered Glass, the revelations of Stephen Glass's fabrications at the magazine the New Republic are reacted to as something that rocked the journalism world -- his editor Chuck Lane (played by Peter Sarsgaard in the movie) emphasizes to another reporter, "it's indefensible. Don't you know that?" (Ray 2003). But the question of whether or not this is really indefensible anymore is actually very much a matter of debate. Though he movie certainly condemns Glass, the character and the individual assert some supposedly mitigating explanations along with their apologies, as do both Blair and Smith. The commonality of the practice of making up news stories certainly doesn't excuse it, but the fact is that it is defensible -- or at least, it is defended.

Smith has said that when she was lying to people in her articles, she was doing so only in order to "create the desired impact or slam home a salient point" (Leo 1998). This asks the question of what truly credible journalism is -- does it merely report the facts, or does it make sure people are moved by -- or at the very least engaged in -- a story? After all, what good is the media if it isn't being read? As Glass' character in the movie says about one of the first of his made-up stories to be discovered, "I just wanted it to have an eyewitness feel...for color" (Ray 2003). Without this "color," both Glass and others at the magazine feared, readers would be yawning and tossing the magazine aside. So is it really so wrong to "color" a story in order to "create the desired impact" and make sure a story finds its intended mark on the reader> Are we really ready to start redefining journalism in this way, where Truth trumps simple truth?

Though Blair, Smith, and Glass might want the answer to be "yes," we must consider the ramifications of this option. Up to this point, the media has generally been considered the arbiter of objective truth, with an obligation to "provide news and information that is accurate, fairly reported and untainted by diminished credibility" (Union-Tribune 2004). But this doesn't sem to be what we are asking for in other arenas, and frankly there isn't any media outlet, whether in print or on television or the Internet, that is completely "untainted by diminished credibility" -- everything has funding from somewhere, and money gets the message out. If news is going to be slanted anyway, why not make it open and outright? John Leo notes that overt examples of mixing fact and fiction in "journalism" already exist, and also notes that "society has its own truth troubles," listing "docudramas" as the first of these (Leo). We as a culture are obsessed with things that we can believe as truth despite the obvious slant, so can we really expect our servants in the news media to behave any differently?

This question is made all the more relevant -- and ironic -- by the fact that Shattered Glass is itself a docudrama; a fictionalization of mostly true events told in a sensationalized version in order to make it more compelling. While cliched lines like "Look at me and say that again" might miss on the compelling mark, they certainly stand out as scripted rather than naturalistic (Ray 2003). There is no small amount of irony in the fact that this movie is so successful in getting its point about journalism and truth across by fictionalizing real events. The difference, of course, is that the movie does not purport to be complete fact, and any moviegoer with average intelligence should be able to deduce the fact that not everything happened in life as it did in the movie. Blair wrote a memoir of his lies and their effects, of which it was asked, "How much can we expect to learn from someone we know better than to trust?" (Braun 2004). The answer, according to Shattered Glass, is a lot -- as long as the story's powerful enough.