People don’t understand the great amount of influence journalism has. To be a journalist you should be impartial and have integrity. Some people just lack those qualities.

In the movie “Shattered Glass” it indicated that Stephen Glass was a pathelogical liar and wrote stories with little credibility. He wrote multiple fabricated stories and even made notes to make it seem like the people in his story existed. In his interview with 60 Minutes, he stated that he once was a fact checker so he knew how to get his story published.

“Hack Heaven” is where it all began to fall. Because his story was so phenomenal the Forbes Digital Tool wondered why they didn’t get to the story first and looked further into the situation. This is when they found out Glass was lying about everything.

Janet Cooke wrote a heart touching story about eight year old heroin addict boy. The problem with this story is that is was all made up. It was very believable because of the quotes she had from the “family” and doctors. She received the Pulitzer Prize and won the sympathy of many people. Soon people became skeptical when they couldn’t find Jimmy. Investigation revealed that Cooke lied about where she worked and her academic credentials.

Journalist Jayson Blair lied and plagiarized through dozens of stories. He wrote about locations he never visited, fabricated events that never took place, and took quotes from other publications. As a result he was forced to resign and frowned upon.

Journalism records major events happening today so you would think journalist should be ethical. From now on they should start making new upcoming journalist take lie detector test. This would solve many problems upfront.