Accuracy is our rock

JOSEPH N. BELL

My wife and I have just seen “Shattered Glass,” which is playing in

local movie houses -- but not, I suspect, for very long. This is a

dramatization of the fraud perpetrated on the readers of the New

Republic by writer Stephen Glass, who made-up all or part of 27

supposedly factual articles he wrote for that magazine.

Offhand, I can think of only two groups who might want to see this

movie: professional journalists and those folks who consider the

press responsible for most of our national ills. And in both cases,

the message they take away would be highly deceptive. To journalists,

it might appear a lot easier than it really is to get fabricated copy

through the system. And to those who demonize the media, it would

strongly suggest that anyone who believes what they read in the print

media is an apt candidate to buy the Brooklyn Bridge.

Since the craft I represent has been taking substantial hits from

several well-publicized journalistic frauds recently -- Jayson

Blair’s embarrassment of the New York Times, in particular -- a

little perspective on the Glass case and the movie based on it seems

in order.

The New Republic has been around since before the Civil War,

offering a moderately liberal -- and often quirky and unpredictable

-- viewpoint. It is really two magazines in one, half devoted to the

arts and half to news commentary. Over the last two years, there have

been some wrenching changes in the news portion that persuaded me to

drop a subscription I’ve had for many years. Stephen Glass came and

went during that period.

Although I wasn’t aware of it at the time, it is astonishing to me

now that a 24-year-old -- even though his writing skills were

impressive -- would have been given the opportunity to create

editorial policy for this traditional magazine. But much more

astonishing is that his fraudulent prose got through their checking

system. C’mon, 27 pieces of imaginary news in a magazine with a long

heritage of accuracy?

I made most of my living for five decades by writing for national

magazines, and I can promise the doubters that every fact was checked

and double-checked. I would routinely get several dozen queries from

the fact checkers about the most minute details in a manuscript. The

checkers were professional nitpickers, and they were a pain in the

neck.

But there was good reason for the nitpicking.

My editors once got a menu of alleged errors, for example, longer

than the story itself, from a group of advertisers who didn’t like

something I wrote. It had been fact-checked, but I did it again, and

not a single factual complaint about a long article stood up. I don’t

think Glass could have beat the systems I dealt with, and I certainly

don’t believe that what happened at the New Republic -- as depicted

in this movie -- is typical of the manner in which most of the print

media protects its accuracy.

Having said that, it should be added that both accuracy and bias

vary widely among the different media, ranging from the outrageous

excesses of talk radio to the rigid strictures of those members of

the print media who zealously guard their professionalism. It’s an

imperfect system, but those publications and the journalists working

for them who respect their calling should not be hung out to dry with

the few who abuse it.

Without question, the abuses are growing. Talk radio is a

festering blight on this country that is supplying the only source of

information -- or, rather, misinformation -- to a growing number of

voters. And there is Fox News, which -- according to a producer who

couldn’t stomach it any longer -- blatantly issues a daily memo to

the news staff to spin its reporting to the political views of its

owner, Rupert Murdoch. In between are various layers of print media

that make an honest effort -- some more so than others -- to

establish a clear distinction between news and opinion.

During my early years in journalism, this was a firm line. A good

friend and fine writer was cut off by the Saturday Evening Post

because the editors discovered he had once accepted a public

relations fee from a company he later wrote about in the Post. I lost

a trip to London to interview Paul McCartney for the New York Times

Magazine because his press agents had offered to pay my expenses. I

once lost a story so potent that it made the cover of Life Magazine

because the National Observer wouldn’t pay my expenses to a movie

location and refused to allow me to accept them from the studio.

Plenty of temptations were out there -- and, I presume, still are.

I was once invited by a PR friend to have lunch with the CEO of a

large toy company who offered to pay me the going advertising rate at

a half-dozen top national magazines where my byline had appeared if I

could get a story published that would include mention of several of

his products. I was also offered $5,000 by the National Inquirer for

my notes of an interview with a movie star who was not talking

otherwise. Even communicating with the people who made these offers

would have raised substantial questions in the minds of editors with

whom I was working.

But today, the reading public is not only hearing about reporters

writing fiction in the guise of fact for the most highly respected

publications -- and getting away with it much longer than they should

-- but also that the perpetrators are turning their fraud into

profit. Glass’ first act after being fired was to write a novel about

a fictional reporter who is fired for fabricating stories. Now, Glass

has it both ways.

All this is, of course, mother’s milk to the politicians, pressure

groups and corporate executives who think the primary function of the

press should be to print their publicity releases -- and to another,

larger, group that is convinced the best way to deal with bad news is

to kill the messenger that brought it.

The good guys win in “Shattered Glass,” but the bad guy has one

hell of a run. If this interests you, by all means go see it. The

performances are excellent. But just keep in mind, please, as you

watch the movie unravel, that the rock on which journalism is built

is still accuracy, and most of us who practice this craft have a

considerable respect for that foundation.

* JOSEPH N. BELL is a resident of Santa Ana Heights. His column

appears Thursdays.