Shattered Glass (film) - Plot Summary

Plot Summary

Stephen Randall Glass is a reporter/associate editor at The New Republic, a magazine located in Washington, DC. At The New Republic, Glass is known for his colorful writing. His editor, Michael Kelly, is revered by his young staff. When David Keene (at the time Chairman of the American Conservative Union) questions Glass' description of minibars and the drunken antics of Young Republicans at a convention, Kelly backs his reporter when Glass admits to one mistake but says the rest is true.

But Kelly is fired after he stands up to his nitpicking boss Marty Peretz and the staff are less enchanted with his replacement, fellow writer Charles "Chuck" Lane. Glass lampoons the restrained Lane behind closed doors and ingratiates himself with coworkers. In a staff meeting, Glass entertains with his newest story pitch about Ian Restil, a teenage hacker hired by Jukt Micronics, a software company in Silicon Valley, after he hacks their system's security. Glass reports that Restil used a sports agent to negotiate a lucrative compensation package celebrated by his peers at a hacker convention. But after the article is printed, the editor at Forbes Digital Tool, a fledgling webzine, asks reporter Adam Penenberg how he missed the scoop, and Penenberg begins to investigate. The story unravels as one "fact" after another raises suspicions, and with the help of Andy Fox, a colleague, Penenberg challenges Lane to get to the truth. Phone numbers lead only to voicemails, the software company has an amateurish, slapdash webpage, Glass has virtually no answers as to the facts of the story and Lane can't confirm anything.

Hammered with questions, Glass can see his responses are unconvincing, so he now claims he must have been duped by his sources. Lane finally forces Glass to drive out to the convention site to trace the agent, but the Bethesda office building where the convention supposedly took place is closed on Sundays, and the nearby restaurant where he claims they ate dinner closes at 3:00 p.m.

Glass finally admits to Lane that he wasn't actually at the hacker convention, but relied on sources for information. Lane is outraged by the lies and lazy, inaccurate reporting but proceeds cautiously after telling Glass that he wants Glass to tell him the truth from now on. He suspends Glass even though he has the sympathy of coworkers. Caitlin Avey, a friend of Glass and fellow writer at the magazine, considers quitting over Lane's supposed unjust treatment of Glass. When a colleague calls Lane to express concern for Glass' state of mind he also reveals that Glass has a brother in Palo Alto, and Chuck realizes the brother must have posed as the president of Jukt Micronics.

Lane goes back to the office where he finds Glass and confronts him on the lies. Glass pleads for another chance but Lane orders him out of the office and takes his security access card. Searching through back issues of The New Republic, Lane is disgusted when he realizes that much, if not all, of Glass' previous work was falsified, and when an emotional Glass suddenly returns to the office, Lane fires him.

After she hears the news, Caitlin accuses Lane of wanting to get rid of everyone that was loyal to Michael Kelly, but he challenges her to act like the good reporter she is. He reminds her that half of the falsified stories were published on Kelly's watch and that the entire staff will have to apologize to their readers for allowing Glass to continue to hand in fictitious stories.

When Lane arrives at the office the following day, the receptionist wryly remarks that all this trouble could have been averted if reporters were mandated to photograph all their sources. In their meeting, Lane discovers the staff has written an apology to their readers, and they spontaneously begin to applaud their editor, signifying their unity.

At a meeting with Glass and Glass' lawyer, Lane is told the entire truth. Glass, in effect, admits that 27 of the articles he wrote were fabricated in whole or in part.