A Maddening Work of Staggering Fabrication
Press Action
Tuesday, November 11, 2003
http://www.pressaction.com/news/weblog/full_article/hand11112003/
By Mark Hand
The New Republic is the Washington Post of opinion magazines. It reads like the front page, op-ed and Style sections of the Washington Post all wrapped into one little magazine. Many of the magazine’s editors end up writing for the newspaper. The Washington Post is the destination for New Republic editorial staffers. What could be more insufferable than a young writer auditioning to be a Postie?
The poster child for Washington Post wannabes is Stephen Glass, the 20-something writer who turned the New Republic into a synonym for journalistic shame the same way Jeff Skilling turned Enron into a synonym for corporate greed.
The story of energy giant Enron’s downfall was made into a bad television movie, while the producers of Shattered Glass, a movie about a scandal at a small circulation magazine, were able to convince a studio to distribute their film on the big screen. The producers even duped the critics, who have given Shattered Glass generally favorable reviews.
Shattered Glass is a tedious 90 minutes of Stephen Glass’ character incessantly mixing charm with insecurity. Glass’ moments of anxiety tend to precede periods of reassurance. He repeatedly tells his editors that all the facts in his stories can be corroborated once he finds his imaginary notes for imaginary source information used to write his works of fiction. It goes on and on until we reach one of the last scenes in the movie when Glass finally admits the scale of his deception by keeping his mouth shut.
As portrayed by Hayden Christensen, Stephen Glass is a maddening bore who seduces his New Republic colleagues with flattery, while playing them for fools the whole time.
Robert Redford’s All the President’s Men is a fictionalized look at the work of two Washington Post reporters who uncover malfeasance in the White House and who play a part in bringing down a president. With Shattered Glass, we have two online reporters with Forbes Digital Tool burning the midnight oil in order to bring down a punk reporter who dares to tread on their turf with a phony article about a teenage computer hacker.
Sure, some would argue that Redford and Woodstein engaged in a high degree of embellishment in order to cook up a Hollywood thriller, while Shattered Glass remains more faithful to the book, or the Vanity Fair article, as it were. But Redford’s work paid off, with the movie turning the Washington Post into a symbol of muckraking journalism. Shattered Glass, on the other hand, isn’t likely to do much for the image of the New Republic, even though the moviemakers try to convey the magazine’s clout in Washington political circles by concocting a slogan for the magazine: “The in-flight magazine of Air Force One.”
And yet, critics are making favorable comparisons between the two movies. “As with ‘All the President’s Men,’ you watch knowing what the outcome will be, yet you hang in suspense over how the truth-seekers ultimately will cut through the lies,” Mark Caro writes in the Chicago Tribune.
I expect Shattered Glass will become required viewing in journalism schools around the country. If so, perhaps it will teach students that if ever they land a job at a magazine, make sure to avoid empowering the ego of an annoying co-worker who rambles on about his article ideas during weekly editorial meetings.
David Plotz, a deputy editor at Slate, described how watching Shattered Glass felt like a dream. Plotz’s wife, Hanna Rosin, was a colleague of Glass’ at the New Republic and one of his best friends. He relates how the creepy person portrayed by Hayden Christensen in the movie wasn’t the same Steve that he and his wife knew. “Our Steve was a lovely, winning, hilarious, endearing person. Christensen’s Steve is not. … Our Steve rubbed off on all of us, made us think that life could be luscious and fun. We loved Steve, but this cinematic Steve seems too weird to love. He doesn’t have enough magic.”
Two of Glass’ editors at the New Republic are made into heroes by the movie. Michael Kelly, the rabid pro-war columnist for the Washington Post who died in Iraq earlier this year reporting on the invasion he so fervently promoted, is portrayed as a writer’s editor who defends his young editorial troops when mean Martin Peretz, the New Republic’s owner, is in a bullying mood. Peretz fires Kelly, despite his popularity among the rank and file, and names Charles “Chuck” Lane editor. Lane, who now covers the Supreme Court for the Washington Post, tangles with the editorial staff but eventually gains their respect after he doggedly works to uncover the extent of the damage caused by Glass.
“It’s a little disingenuous for the movie,” Mark Jenkins writes in the Washington City Paper, “to make Lane (who served as a paid consultant to the film) the hero of the saga, or to glorify the late Michael Kelly, who was Glass’ principal enabler.”