Analysis Of Buzz Bissinger's Shattered Glass

Stephen Glass, a writer at The New Republic, sparked widespread knowledge about dishonesty within the news, ultimately causing readers to investigate further about the topics that they came across. Prior to Glass’ insightfully imaginative publications, false stories were rarely challenged and almost never “debunked” (Bissinger). However, Glass masterfully exposed society to this new awareness: fabrications occur quite frequently throughout journalism. Building upon Stephen Glass’s fabricated stories, Buzz Bissinger, author of Vanity Fair’s article “Shattered Glass,” created a piece, which further discussed the escalating topic surrounding false news. Bissinger undoubtedly raised awareness about the detrimental impact that intentional fabricated news stories have on society. In doing so, Bissinger exposed Glass’s writing style and how his infatuation with success, subsequently led to the ultimate demise of his journalism career. Bissinger highlights that Glass was “one of the most sought-after young reporters in the nation’s capital,” he challenges his overall credibility (Bissinger). Through the analysis of Buzz Bissinger’s article about Stephen

Glass and the exploration of Mike Sager’s article about Janet Cooke, the two authors introduce the idea of fabrications within journalism, by appealing to reason, ethics, and emotion through the use of diction, structure, and examples.
Bissinger utilizes the emotional appeal on readers when he writes with strategic diction. Alluding to emotional appeals, Bissinger’s knowledge about how to attach the feeling of guilt from Stephen Glass, makes readers understand the fraud that Glass created through his fabricated stories. Words such as “deception” and “relentless,” are just a few examples of how Bissinger’s use of strategic diction clarifies how Glass was not just an author, but a devious artist (Bissinger). He always went the extra mile to make sure his simulated stories were never uncovered as fake. The title of Bissinger’s article, “Shattered Glass,” specifically noticing the first word “shattered,” appeals to reasoning. Bissinger focused on specific details in his article to convey a story about how Glass destroyed his career through the constant deceitfulness in the stories he wrote. The imaginative diction of “shattered” gives a vivid picture of the author that Glass is, and thus explains why Bissinger’s reasoning is accurate and spot on. Bissinger’s applies an appeal to ethics by using truthful diction, such as, “the subtle ease with which even now, as he attempted to clear himself” and “the ingenuity of the con” (Bissinger). Glass went through high hoops to carefully and successfully achieve his goals. By ostensibly discovering what we now call “fake news”, the young author was able to reach new heights of journalism that the rarely existed (Bissinger). Eventually, after tedious efforts to keep his name clear, Glass confessed to the creation of 27 fabricated stories. With these observations, Bissinger reveals the Glass’ questionable ethics when he finally came forward and exposed his fake stories that he shared with the world. The success of Bissinger’s article on Glass is demonstrated through the variety of types of diction used and the appeals that each diction applied to, thus creating an inspirational and successful story.
The success of Glass’s work that is demonstrated in “Shattered Glass” was purposefully written through Bissinger’s tactful structure of the story, appealing to reason, ethics, and emotion. Bissinger structured the article in a chronological form, by using events and occurrences that happened in Glass’s life to demonstrate that certain circumstances led to the self-destruction of his career. Bissinger touches on the spark of Glass’s imagination and those “mental giants who loved the game of designing scenarios with creative flair” (Bissinger). Each of Glass’s fabricated articles became more and more deceitful and overextended. With every effort that he poured into his creation, he did not leave out any details or room for people to catch his lies. Bissinger pulls the audience’s attention at Glass’s upbringing and pressure to be better than his younger brother, who was “cute, cool, and popular with girls” and a “National Merit scholarship semifinalist” (Bissinger). Michael Glass, Stephen’s younger brother, accomplished what Glass attempted at his whole childhood. Glass grew up in a family structure that forced him to become ignorant when remembering his ethics. Every time his brother would succeed, it would push him further and further into the love for deception in his stories. The structural elements of adding in chronologies make the writing captivating. Each story that Bissinger touches on Glass’s past allows readers to feel emotion and understand the purpose of his fabrication in his stories. The structure of the article that Bissinger chose, focuses in on childhood experiences and the societal pressure to succeed.
In “Shattered Glass,” Bissinger emphasizes the importance of success for Glass through the use of examples in his article. Success is driven from a powerful place in a writer’s mind. Not only in writing, but in every aspect of people’s lives, success is typically the determining factor when deciding whether to do something or not. For Stephen Glass, success was the most important factor when he was writing a piece to publish to the world. He did not care if his deceitfulness went to the highest level of his capacity, as long as that story ended with the success of his own. Michael Crowley, Glass’ coworker, said that the “nickname for Steve was Hub” because he needed and did know everything about everyone, “that’s why, to some extent, his reporting was credible – he knew everything inside the magazine, so why wouldn’t he figure out what was going on in the world of his stories” (Bissinger). Using the example of how Glass’s charisma and genuine personality made him personable with all of the workers and employees of the magazine. Having this leg up, made it easy for him to ignore the ethics of the workplace and just drive his successful stories. The audience feels the emotion and panic coming from Glass when he hesitantly asks, “Are you mad at me?” (Bissinger). Glass had something missing inside “that core sense of confidence and security,” and it was clear to see once his lies were uncovered (Bissinger). Glass went further than anyone had ever seen. Not letting his insecurity and inner self-loathing distract his movement towards success. Glass went further than anyone had ever seen. In other words, the emotional impact of lying through each piece of evidence that Glass inserted in his stories influences how the audience read his pieces. Most problematically, he trapped his audience – who believed that they were reading non-fictional stories – into taking fictional statements as truth.
In concerns to pushing the progression of journalistic fraudulence, Mike Sager wrote an article for the Columbia Journalism Review, called “The fabulist who changed journalism.” The article discusses the actions of Janet Cooke, a journalist for The Washington Post, who fabricated stories in order to become one of the first African American woman writers. Sager inflicted an emotional appeal on the audience when they read the first line of his article, “Janet Cooke entered the acre-square newsroom of The Washington Post wearing a red wool suit and a white silk shirt. It was her first day of work. She was two hours late” (Sager). He used harsh diction to conceptualize Cooke as a “warning shot” and “a harbinger of all kinds of journalistic scandals to come” (Sager).
Sager demonstrates the foundations that Cooke opened up to the world about the new scope of what journalism could be encompass. It was her efforts that established the new wave of fraudulence within journalistic writing. Sager writes, “Cooke’s transgressions rocked the foundations of trust the press had built since the post-World War II blossoming of the information age. After centuries of Fleet Streeters, muckrakers, and yellow journalists, the public had welcomed Walter Cronkite into their living rooms; the crusading work of journalists had freed America from a bad war and a crooked presidency. All over the country, reporters were busy ferreting out corruption of all kinds. Now, suddenly, with Cooke, the press had fallen from grace.”

Through various examples of Cooke’s dishonesty and deception, Sager incorporates how her ethics were not aligned, until after she admitted to her wrongdoings.

Janet Cooke submitted her resignation a few weeks after she had returned her Pulitzer Prize and admitted to the claim that her Prize-winning story was a fabrication. Sager mentions that “there was a star system, yes. There was creative tension, yes. But at the same time, we knew that shortcuts and screw ups or questionable information would not be tolerated. The idea of fabricating a quote, much less a character or an entire story, was unimaginable—akin to sinning in church.” By incorporating examples and clear demonstrations of how Cooke deceived her audience to get ahead in the industry, readers witness the ethics and reasoning behind Cooke’s falsehearted

actions.
After careful consideration of the two credible authors, Buzz Bissinger and Mike Sager, I developed my own thoughts and opinions on the topic at hand. Truthfulness and honesty is a hard quality to find in people and in writing, especially living in a world which is now dominated by what our screens are displaying every 3 seconds. Dishonesty is not just displayed in writing or in the writer, but in their motives, that drive them to decide to spread fabrications. I believe in the statement that both Stephen Glass and Janet Cooke pushed for the progression and awareness of fabrications within journalism. The two writers cause defamations of writing to become present in the media world we now are aware of. Even with recent studies and education to prevent fabrications from spreading, our society continues to struggle to find the facts inside a world of fiction.