Shattered Glass

An important film for aspiring and perspiring journalists. Much of the message may be lost on others. It may lack the high drama of 'All the President's Men', but has just as much truth to tell. The 'extra' interview with Stephen Glass should not be missed.

Starts off like a teen movie, nearly gave up.

Main character was extremely unlikeable

so I couldn't wait for him to receive his come upence.

Not a very interesting film.

I’ve often suspected that editors don’t read their submissions, and this film confirms my suspicions.

The story is fascinating. A young, popular and highly talented journalist, Stephen Glass, played by Hayden Christenden, writes for the New Republic magazine. He lives in a fantasy world of his own creation and his ambitions are boundless, so when he can’t get a good story, he simply makes one up. Although the lengths he goes to in order to support the accuracy of his stories and characters are so extreme, one would have thought it might have been easier to write a genuine one.

This situation goes completely un-noticed, not only by his editor, Michael Kelly, but by his journalist colleagues, plus the entire Magazine network of sub-editors, copy editors and various people lower down the scale. If the odd fact was found to be incorrect, Stephen’s popularity and obvious talent was such that nothing was said.

One colleague, however, Christopher (Chuck) Lane, played by Peter Saarsgard, begins to suspect that something is seriously wrong about Stephen’s consistently amazing and brilliant submissions .No-one, Lane thinks, could be that lucky.

Gradually, Glass brings about his own downfall.

The fact that this story is based on fact makes it even more thought-provoking. How much of what we read is fact and how much pure fiction.

Hayden Christenden is extremely good in the role of Glass. And Peter Saarsgard’s portrayal of the quiet, thoughtful young journalist faced with the task of bringing down a highly poplar colleague, is under-played but effective.

A great film that's well acted and certainly opened my eyes to how poor the 'assurance' of stories used to be. Or still is... Definitely worth a look.

I thought this might be interesting and it was up to a point. The problem was that the main character really wasn't likable and you wanted him to be found out.