A Newfound Finding on The New Republic

Although not neccessarily an independent media outlet, "The New Republic" has always framed ideas in a different way than even its fellow, liberal periodicals. From writers to the chief editors themselves, the paper has challenged and criticized current presidencies as well as uncovered both human interest stories as well as "muckraked stories."

I've always known about "The New Republic" and acknowledged its existence, having read it once or twice. But in my News Editing class earlier this week, we watched the film "Shattered Glass" starring Hayden Christensen and detailing the demise of once-acclaimed "New Republic" writer Stephen Glass. In 1998, Glass, then 24, was a rising star in the field: his humorous but seemingly "investigative" stories engaged readers and he himself gained a following both of readers and co-workers. However, when competitor "Forbes'" online magazine found several of Glass' sources in his article "Hacker Heaven" to be illegitimate--and, moreover, fabricated--Glass' world comes crashing down. Recently appointed editor of "New Republic," Chuck Lane, faces the task of dealing with Glass while not tarnishing the reputation of the magazine. In the end, Glass admits to fabricating or partially fabricating 27 out of the 41 pieces he wrote for the magazine.

The bigger story for the sake of our Indy Media class, however, is the work of "Forbes" and in particular writer Adam Penenberg who debunked Glass' "hacker prodigy" character and story. This was a breakthrough for online media, as an online form of media was able to use THE INTERNET in addition to calling up sources themselves in proving a mainstay magazine wrong. Suddenly, even a publication with a readership of over 80,000 could be brought down (for the record, "The New Republic" now has a circulation of about 50,000). Moreover, this incident prompted more fact checking among publications--and fact checking in terms of how the Internet and new media sources are used. For one of the major points Penenberg had against Glass was that the website for "Jukt Micronics" was simply a webpage--not a website for a major, tech corporation (it would eventually turn out that this page--which was only viewable for those with an AOL account--was made by either Glass or his college-aged brother who attended Stanford).

The story of Stephen Glass both proved that independent periodicals can be brought down and online journalism has the same potential as its print counterpart. For me too, on a side note, it proves that the "wealth" of "educated periodicals" is highly concentrated and populated with Ivy League grads and law students.... and not those who went to the quote-un-quote top "journalism schools" in the country. As independent media continues to grow, it will be interesting to see if these Ivy Leagues will continue to be suppliers to a new age of journalism--because after all, Chris Hughes, the current editor of "The New Republic" went to Harvard and was one of the co-founders of Facebook along with Mark Zuckerberg...

For more on the film, check out the trailer and you can also check out the article which inspired the film and details the complete demise of Glass (written by my personal favorite journalist/member of the "Ivy League elite," H.G. Bissinger)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0323944/

http://www.vanityfair.com/magazine/archive/1998/09/bissinger199809