An Eye for an Eye

Aryan Mukherjee

An eye for an eye. The principle of revenge. An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. The principle of forgiveness. But what if the eyes taken did make the whole world blind? And what if the perpetrator got off scot-free? What if lies after fallacies after little mishaps all built up so far and so wide that by the time people really started catching wind of what was truly being conspired, it was too little too late. Thus is the story of Stephen Glass.

Stephen Glass was born on September 15, 1972 to a Jewish family in Chicago, and appeared to have an instant knack for journalism. From joining the student newspaper at the University of Pennsylvania where he graduated from, to having colleagues ranging prominently in several renowned magazines at the time, especially The Rolling Stone. However, his goals crossed paths like a double helix, and as the delightful odor of journalism wrapped him in from one side, his family’s bigoted idealogies steered him into law. Even later in his career, after joining as editorial assistant to The New Republic, his family’s ground-driven expectations caused burden after burden to be weighed down upon him, likely contributing to his final, gradual, snap. 

Soon after joining, Stephen Glass gained status, prestige, and loyalty. He was bumped up to writing features for the magazine, and with his profusely apologetic nature coupled with his seemingly all high and mighty moral values emanating out of him, his coworkers built not only an unassailable friendship with him, but a barricade of sorts to protect and defend any future accusations that would soon creep up to haunt him.

And insinuations of accusations did bite. In 1996, the Center for Science in the Public Interest had a nasty scratch on their record after Glass’s “Hazardous to Your Mental Health Story”. D.A.R.E, an organization every 6th grader has personally encountered, had a strip on their merit after Glass’s 1997 article “Don’t you D.A.R.E”. Yet as these accusations were pelted like bullets at Glass, he sat there, smirking, completely unarmed and unharmed, as his editor Michael Kelly and his loyal staff worked doggedly to support him, all while his schemes kept rising behind their backs.

All of this, and only two questions remain. Two very, very important questions. How did he do it? And the quintessential one, how was he caught? We’ll start with the first. You see, Glass had worked long term as a fact checker for The New Republic before landing his job writing the editorials. He knew the ins and outs, and exactly what went into validating an article. Loops of processes checking every single fact and line, editing everything down to the tee, all to ensure close to, if not 100% accuracy in every letter of every word of every article. Yet there was one major flaw. In a news story where a journalist is actually present during the incident, and no one else from that committee is present, the only true “first person” source of information on the story comes from the reporter’s notes. Their notes are the only thing validating the information, and if all of the fact checks match up to their notes, the story is acclaimed to be credible, and is published.

Knowing this, Glass set up fake addresses, fake voicemails, fake emails, even fake websites to cover up his tracks. And with his unsuspecting, loyal editor Michael Kelly and his closest friends who’s trust in him was stronger than cement, every single story was published.

In an interview after the entire insinuation was exploited, he claims that it started off small, as everything once does. Every single time he did it, he would tell himself to stop. Yet the stupor of his article going true, the revelation of the crowds, the glee at the faces of every one of his friends after their eager arrival of his story all fueled his will to do it more, eventually, faking whole stories all together. And people were none the wiser. At least until everyone’s favorite editor, Michael Kelly, in September of 1997, was fired by the owner of the company, Martin Peretz, for his incongruence with Kelly’s relentless attacks on President Clinton and his scandals at the time. As for who to replace him? A close friend and advocate for Peretz, Chuck Lane. 

Lane immediately loathed all of his workers, specifically Glass and his crew who mirrored the feelings after having their beloved editor leave. And so, of course, tensions built between them, and anything Lane could use against them, he would.

So when in March of 1998, Glass(who was now associate editor) hyped and published a particularly uncanny story, Lane jumped on the case. Glass reported that Ian Restil, a 15 year old hacker, had allegedly hacked one of the biggest computer company networks in the area, a company known as Jukt Micronics(which apparently was completely offline), and scammed them out of millions of dollars. Glass reported a date, time, meet-up location, and so much more to create what looked on the surface like a sound story. The best part? Jukt Micronics, Ian Restil, the entire system, and everything in his story were complete and utter fabrications. He had made up every single detail.

Yet when Adam Penenberg from Forbes magazine confronted Glass about it, he set up seemingly believable voicemails, messages, and email chains all looping round to nothingness, and all keeping a flat line in terms of information. Eventually, after suspicions arose and Lane was contacted regarding it, lie after lie slipped through until the entire scheme was slowly yet surely revealed. First, Glass claimed he had been duped by ‘Ian’(who he had completely made up) about the information. However, when Lane took Glass to the scene of action, it was revealed to him that the building where it had allegedly happened was closed, and the restaurant and all information afterwards never existed. The jig was finally up.

Or was it? Well, Glass still had one more trick up his sleeve, this time, truly pulling the strings and becoming a puppeteer to all of those closest to him. He told his entire crew that Lane was enforcing false claims and making a mountain out of a molehill, and acted as though his entire emotional complex was like a fuse, ready to blow. His loyal friends stayed loyal and played in his act for their last time ever, and they turned it against Lane. But Lane held his ground.

And he wasn’t done. After snooping through Glass’s other publications, his fact check system repeatedly turned up the exact same results; fake, fake, FAKE!

Glass’s friends were being looped in a game of Tug of War, their friendship to Glass so devout it was tugging them one way, but the sheer evidence and common sense tugging them the other. Eventually, Lane let go of the rope, yet the force of the simply letting go finally snapped something into Glass’s friends in the article. The physical, emotional, and mental saga that was this battle was over, and Glass was laid off from his job for mass fraudulence. In total, he had fabricated 27 articles under the New Republic. Moreover, he fabricated his life, and everything he had done to get where he was, was a lie.

The results of this layoff were immediate and widespread. As Hanna Rosin, Glass’s closest friend and constant supporter reported during the aftermath, “He just went missing, like the kids on the milk cartons. It was weird. People often ask me if I felt “betrayed,” but really I was deeply unsettled, like I’d woken up in the wrong room. I wondered whether Steve had lied to me about personal things, too. I wondered how, even after he’d been caught, he could bring himself to recruit me to defend him, knowing I’d be risking my job to do so. I wondered how I could spend more time with a person during the week than I spent with my husband and not suspect a thing. (And I didn’t. It came as a total surprise). And I wondered what else I didn’t know about people. Could my brother be a drug addict? Did my best friend actually hate me?”

Things were rough, and never got back to usual. The people were betrayed, his family were betrayed, his friends were betrayed, nearly everyone had been touched and tugged at by Glass, just for him to launch a dagger at their hearts and leave them.

So what about the punishment? Obviously, Glass had to pay 200,000 dollars in recovery fees to The New Republic, was stripped of his job and career, and had a permanent dent in his career. Yet now, he’s into law, just as his parents foresaw, and although isn’t able to become a license attorney, still works as director of special projects at a personal injury firm in Beverly Hills, and is doing just fine.

So with all this, what’s the point? 1500 words about one of the greatest journalistic scandals in history, and for what? A lesson about how you should always follow the career your parents pave out for you? NO! Stephen Glass was a criminal, and his impact scarred the lives of hundreds of thousands if not millions who followed him. He had gouged the eyes of all whom his wrath had spread to, and just transitioned jobs and had to pay about 14% of his current net worth. Half an eye, for millions of eyes. The whole world, blind, mistrusted, and made a joke out of.

So that begs one, final question, and I promise this is it. What punishment should truly ensue for matters which cannot be evenly reciprocated? Is an eye for an eye the only true way nobody loses eyes? Or should we each try to implicate a perfect society, while we are all being deceived right in front of our very eyes…