Scamfluencers - Stephen Glass: Bad News

Episode Date: May 6, 2024

Stephen Glass is a rising star in the ’90s magazine journalism world, breaking provocative stories that his editors love. But some find the stories too fantastical to believe. When he finally gets a close edit, the scope and scale of his scam will be stranger than fiction.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to scamfluencers early and ad free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or Apple podcasts. Okay, Sarah, I know you've never plagiarized or lied in your reporting, but have you ever been maybe a little sloppy with the details? Like, have you ever gotten a correction despite your best efforts? Yeah, I mean, I think perhaps, like, I've used, like, maybe dated information without knowing it, but it's, like, absolutely the most scary

and mortifying thing in the world. Yeah, I remember every single correction I've ever gotten. They have all sunken into my skin, and they have filled me with rage against myself, which I think is a super normal response. I think so too. I mean, it's your job. Like if you're not credible, then you're screwed forever.

Well, I have a story that I know is going to make you feel that sick, sour turn in your stomach that can only come from one source and one source only. Finding out that you got something wrong in a piece that you've already published. It's the spring of 1998 when Hannah Rosen gets a phone call. Hannah is 28 years old with short curly brown hair and thin eyebrows. She's a journalist for a politics magazine called The New Republic, and she thinks the call could be from a source. But instead, the panicked voice on the other end of the line belongs to her friend and her colleague, Stephen Glass.

Oh my god. You know, obviously I know who he is because anyone in media knows the Stephen Glass story, and I just gotta say I am so happy we are doing this and I cannot wait to learn things I did not know about Stephen Glass. Oh yeah, there's a lot. Well, Hannah and Steve have worked together at the New Republic for years. They both started as interns shortly after college. And they're super close friends. Hannah spends more time with Stephen than she does with her husband.

He's in her office 10 times a day, gossiping or asking for advice. And in the past two years, Hana's watched in awe as his career has taken off like a rocket. He's prolific and in demand, both at the New Republic and at places like Rolling Stone and Harper's. And unlike most journalists, he's even got an Asian field in calls from screenwriters and publishers. Oh, and he's only 25, three years younger than Hana. So she's surprised when Stephen tells her that he's just been fired. Hannah can practically see him pacing back and forth,

stretching the phone cord and spiraling out. He says he's been fired for fabricating stories, but he denies it. And he says the whole thing is actually just about office politics. About a year earlier, the New Republic got a new lead editor, a guy named Charles Lane.

And there's been some tension between him and the staff. Stephen tells Hannah that he made one little mistake reporting his last story, and now, Charles is spinning it into a much bigger thing, just to get him in trouble. Stephen says Charles is accusing him of making up the details in his last piece. Hannah can't believe what she's hearing. How could Charles be so petty? The Stephen she knows isn't a liar. He's sweet, eccentric, and insecure.

If he's guilty of anything, it's just of working too hard. Hannah knows she has to protect her friend. She says she'll help him sort this out. She tells Stephen, fuck him. He can't fire you. He can't possibly think you would do that. But Hannah is about to learn that her friend didn't just make up one little detail or even a single story.

The truth is, he's built his entire career on a web of lies so elaborate, it'll take the entire staff of a magazine to entangle. The Stephen Glass that Hannah thought she knew is about to disappear. Or maybe he never existed in the first place. about our latest season because we are talking about someone very very special You're so sweet A fashion icon Oh I actually just put this on A beautiful woman

Your words, not mine Someone who came out of Croydon and took the world by storm Kate Anna, don't tell them where I live A muse, a mother and a supermodel who defined the 90s I don't remember doing the last one Wow Emily, not you. Obviously I mean Kate Moss. Oh I always get us confused. Because you're both so small. How dare you. We are going to dive back into Kate's 90s heyday and her insatiable desire to say yes

to absolutely everything life has to offer. The parties, the Hollywood heartthrobs, the rockstar bad boys. Have I said parties? You did mention the parties, but saying yes to excess comes at a price, as Kate spirals out of control and risks losing everything she's worked for. Follow Terribly Famous wherever you listen to podcasts, or listen early and ad free on Wondery Plus on Apple Podcasts or the Wondery app. 50 high school senior girls descend on Mobile, Alabama every summer to compete for a massive

cash prize. It's one of America's most lucrative scholarship competitions for teen girls. From Pineapple Street Studios and Wondery, this is the competition. Follow the competition on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. ["Satchi Cole & Sarah Haggy"] From Wondry, I'm Satchi Cole and I'm Sarah Haggy. And this is Scamfluencers. ["Satchi Cole & Sarah Haggy"] Today's story takes place in the strange fantasy world

of print media in the 90s. Back then, a promising young writer could pull in six figures a year just writing magazine stories. Stephen Glass' scam was unprecedented in its scope and scale, but it could only take place within a system that was primed to buy the bullshit he was selling. This is a story of a deeply flawed industry and the try-hard nerd who would do anything to rise to the top. He wanted to write stories that would make people notice him.

And that's exactly what he did. I'm calling this one, Stephen Glass, bad news. Stephen Glass is born in 1972 and grows up in a suburban pressure cooker. His dad is a gastroenterologist and his mom is in nursing. They have very high hopes for Stephen and his younger brother Michael. They live in the affluent suburb of Highland Park, Illinois. And the local high school is extremely competitive, churning out Hollywood bigwigs and National Merit Scholars on a regular basis.

A sociologist who wrote about Stephen's school says that it's, quote, the kind of place where an average kid was seen as slow. People who go to schools like this tend to make it their entire personality for the rest of their lives. So I'm not really surprised this is how Stephen Glass grew up. Well, Stephen does do well academically. He's the president of the student congress and he gets amazing grades. In any other school, he'd probably stand out.

But at Highland Park High, he's just a regular nerd, especially next to his brother, Michael, who's smart and popular. Michael is charming in girls like him. He's literally voted most likely to succeed. But not Stephen. Stephen's got a squeaky voice and a dorky, preppy vibe with a roundish blank face that's dominated by his glasses. Stephen's parents really want him to become a doctor.

They push him to apply for the pre-med program at Penn, and when he gets in, they are thrilled. But the truth is, Stephen doesn't really want to go into medicine. He wants to become a journalist. That must be really disappointing for a parent. It is, Sarah. I think your parents and my parents can attest to it. But Stephen joins the student newspaper, The Daily Pennsylvanian, and he loves it.

But his grades start to fall and his parents are pissed. They pressure him to quit the paper so he can focus on his studies. But even after Stephen leaves, his grades keep tanking. Eventually he drops out of the pre-med program, switches his major to anthropology, and goes back to the paper. And now he's able to dedicate himself fully

to his blossoming dream, so much so that he even becomes executive editor. But he's also got a reputation for being kind of, let's say, eccentric. Sarah, can you read this quote from the Daily Pennsylvanian's 1993 profile of him? Yeah, it says, Steve Glass doesn't drink and doesn't smoke, and sex is definitely out. OK, that's that's a thing to tell a lot of people when you're that age. Some people want to brag about being a virgin. Who am I to say anything about that? After Stephen graduates in 1990, he moves to D.C.

and he gets a job at a publication put out by a conservative think tank. About a year after that, he lands an internship at the New Republic. The 90s are a high watermark for the magazine. People often refer to it as, quote, the in-flight magazine of Air Force One, which is either a joke or an insult depending on who you ask. It's also got a reputation for publishing some pretty bigoted opinions. For example, its editor, Andrew Sullivan, helped mainstream The Bell Curve, a book that explicitly argues that people of some races just so happen to be genetically inclined to lower intelligence.

When Stephen starts as an intern at the magazine, he gets to work as Andrew's assistant. It's crazy that since before we were born, Andrew Sullivan has had a job being professionally racist. I know. And yet they yell at us about it. What are we supposed to do? Well, Steven is just thrilled to be there, even if he's starting at the bottom of the ladder. But he needs to find a way to make himself stand out.

Journalism took him away from med school, and if he's going to convince his parents, and the world, that it was worth it, he's got to make this opportunity count. And soon, he'll make a name for himself by taking advantage of one of the magazine's core values, racism. By the spring of 1996, Stephen's been at the New Republic for about a year and a half, and he's now on staff as an assistant editor. But he's barely had a chance to write for the magazine.

The only place he's been able to stand out is in the fact-checking department, where he's developed a reputation for being intensely rigorous. But mostly, Stephen is known for his strange personality. Hannah later describes him as a guy who's, quote, more interested in alphabetizing beer than drinking it. He's obsessed with knowing all the office gossip, and he's got an almost pathological need to please. He's always asking people, are you mad at me? And he's always putting down his own work, often calling his latest story a piece of shit. And this makes some of his coworkers uncomfortable, but others feel weirdly protective, like he's

a lost puppy who needs their help. And Sarah, I haven't told you the weirdest thing yet, which is that Steven has a habit of taking off his shoes and walking around the office in his socks. Yeah, he needs to go to hell. Yeah, it's probably the worst thing he's ever done. He should have been written up for that and fired for that. Correct.

But one day, The New Republic's owner and publisher, Marty Pretz, pitches the staff on an idea for a feature story. He says he's noticed fewer and fewer black taxi drivers in DC. He thinks this says something important about the supposed work ethic of various racial and ethnic groups, and he wants one of his writers to investigate. Now Marty has a pretty well-documented history of writing about the so-called cultural deficiencies of anyone who isn't white, but Stephen isn't thinking about how problematic the story is. He jumps at the opportunity to impress the guy who owns the magazine.

Stephen thinks that, if he can nail this article, it could get his name even higher on the masthead. So he spends months working on the taxi piece. He sits in on a taxi school class taught by a flamboyant instructor. He plays wingman to a goofy limo driver. He even watches a cabbie get mugged while he's sitting in the passenger seat of his car. And at the end, Stephen meets a Korean driver named K. Bang. According to Stephen, K. is a legend in the taxi driving community because of the time

he used martial arts to fight off a group of black teenagers who tried to rob him. At least, that's what Stephen writes. But Sarah, guess what? None of this actually happened. It's all completely made up. Of course, nobody at the magazine knows this, including Marty, who I bet is just delighted when he reads the story. After all, the whole thing is basically designed to confirm his personal worldview. The piece becomes the magazine's cover story in August 1996. And just like that, Stevens made his feature writing debut.

Now, if he wants to keep it up, all he needs to do is keep telling stories that his bosses want to hear. It's January, 1997, and Michael Kelly is reading a letter to the editor. Michael's got round cheeks, wavy brown hair, and oversized glasses. He kind of looks like if George Costanza and Kramer were blended together. He looks like a real, affable nerd.

And a couple of months ago, Michael left his job as a political columnist at The New Yorker to become the lead editor of The New Republic. This letter Michael's reading was written by a watchdog group called the Center for Science in the Public Interest. Stephen wrote about them in one of his recent feature articles. They've been around since the 70s, but their over-the-top health claims have recently started getting national coverage. They've been fueling the 90s diet panic with their newsletter, sounding the alarm about

high-fat snacks like movie theater popcorn. And lots of people who read The New Republic think of this as essentially smug liberals trying to police everyone else's eating habits. It's easy to mock the center as scolds who think that they know better than ordinary Americans. And that is exactly what Stephen did. Stephen didn't just talk about what kind of food restrictions the center advocated for. He showed how the people in charge are truly neurotic weirdos. Like, in the beginning of his article, Steven described how the Center's president acts when he goes out for Chinese food. He wrote that the president takes almost 15 minutes to order because he quizzes his waitress on every detail. When his food comes,

he takes all the sauce off and stirs it together into a bland mush. It's the kind of joyless eating experience the Center wants for all of us. Or at least, that's how Stephen portrays it. Because here's the thing, Stephen never actually witnessed this routine. He attributed the details to, quote, those who were there. I mean, that is really sloppy for a magazine. If you're writing a profile, there are times, obviously, you obviously you get like secondary sources or a third-person account or whatever, but you don't write it as though it's a thing that absolutely happened, right? You're exactly right. And the Watchdog group calls Steven out for it. They say

that he basically made up the Chinese restaurant routine and that he misreported other facts in the piece and even plagiarized some phrases from other articles. Sarah, can you read this quote from their letter? Yeah, it says, The sheer quantity of errors in the article not only calls into question whether minimum standards of objective journalism were consciously disregarded, but makes an adequate response in limited space impossible. Well, yeah, I mean, you can't say something happened that didn't happen. And if the person you're interviewing or profiling is saying, I did not do that, like, it's something

to take seriously, right? Yeah, it's really bad. And this group is not the only one writing to Michael questioning Stephen's reporting. He actually gets several complaints about the article, including one from the editor of a magazine about journalistic ethics. Michael reads all the letters, but he decides to stand by Stephen's article. He's not going to issue a retraction or a correction. For one thing, the article was published under his leadership, and he needs to protect his

own reputation, as well as the magazine's. And for another, he sees it as his responsibility to stand by his writers. He tells the Ethics Reporter that he thinks the criticism is wrong-headed, and he straight up calls the Watchdog Group's director a liar, writing, quote, "'You have shown that you are willing "'to smear someone's professional reputation

"'without any concern for truth.'" He actually demands that they apologize to Stephen. Michael is making a huge public bet on Stephen Glass, but he has no idea what a mistake that will turn out to Stephen. Michael is making a huge public bet on Stephen Glass, but he has no idea what a mistake that will turn out to be. It's spring 1997, and Michael is in his office in DC. Once again, he's responding to criticism of his star reporter's latest story. This one is about a group of young Republican men,

and Stephen supposedly followed them around at that year's conservative political action conference. And his story includes some pretty gross details. The men drink, they do drugs, and they hatch a plan to harass the, quote, ugliest and loneliest woman they can find. This is so disgusting that he made up something so gross and harmful to people. Like, you really have to be insane to lie about that. Yeah.

Well, after the story was published, the chairman of the American Conservative Union wrote a letter to the magazine. They call Stephen, quote, quite a fiction writer, but not much of a reporter. The chairman also pointed out something fishy. He says that Stephen described a minibar in the young conservative's hotel room, and he says that there were, quote, "...empty little bottles of booze scattered on the carpet." Except that the rooms in the Omni Hotel, where the conference was held, don't actually

have minibars. Michael hadn't been worried about this detail, or any others, in Stephen's piece. The magazine has a pretty rigorous fact-checking process. It's a system that Michael brought with him from the New Yorker. any others in Stephen's piece. The magazine has a pretty rigorous fact-checking process. It's a system that Michael brought with him from the New Yorker. But Sarah, as you know, this is the mid-90s, and without Google, the fact-checking process

still relies on the phone book, on paper records, and a reporter's handwritten notes. Thankfully, Stephen always has lots of those. His notes have tons of detail. There are direct quotes, phone numbers, and email addresses for all of his sources. He even marks up his own stories with helpful post-it notes and stays late to answer any questions

the fact checkers might have. It is so insane that he worked this hard to cover his tracks, showing, you know, obviously how intentional this all was. Yeah, it sounds exhausting, actually. Well, after getting the letter, Michael asked Stephen about the minibar. And Stephen admits that the Omni hotel doesn't actually have them. But he says they do allow guests to rent mini fridges.

Michael privately calls the hotel to confirm this. And when they do, he breathes a sigh of relief. This is an understandable mix up and not a malicious lie. Stephen doesn't get fired or even disciplined in any way. Michael is confident that he was right to stand by Stephen. And over the course of the next year, he watches with pride as his protege goes from a rising star at the New Republic to a nationwide journalistic sensation. Stephen starts writing for other big name magazines like Rolling Stone and Harper's.

He even recounts several stories on this American life. But Michael won't be around the office to celebrate with Stephen much longer. In September 1997, he gets fired. Reportedly, it's for being mean to Marty's friend Al Gore. And a few months after that, Michael will be on the sidelines when a star reporter becomes the industry's biggest scandal. Some stories were never meant to be heard. Beneath the visible world of parliaments, politicians and civil servants lies an invisible state filled with secret operatives playing to very different rules. From Wondery, I'm Indra Varma and this is The Spy Who.

This month we open the file on Noor Anayat Khan, the spy who wouldn't lie. When Germany invades France, Noor and her family are forced to flee to Britain. But Noor decides she can't just sit out the war, so she accepts one of the most dangerous spy missions of World War II, a job that will put her deep into enemy territory. Follow the Spy Who now wherever you listen to podcasts. Or you can binge the full season of The Spy Who Wouldn't Lie early and ad free with Wondery+. Hello, I'm Hannah. And I'm Siruti.

And we are the hosts of Red Handed, a weekly true crime podcast. Every week on Red Handed, we get stuck into the most talked about cases. From the Idaho student killings, the Delphi murders and our recent rundown of the Murdoch saga. Last year we also started a second weekly show, Shorthand, which is just an excuse for us to talk about anything we find interesting because it's our show and we can do what we like. We've covered the death of Princess Diana, an unholy Quran written in Saddam Hussein's blood, the gruesome history of European witch hunting and the very uncomfortable phenomenon of genetic sexual attraction. Whatever the case, we want to know what pushes people to the extremes of human behavior.

Like, can someone give consent to be cannibalized? What drives a child to kill? And what's the psychology of a terrorist? Listen to Red Handed wherever you get your podcasts and access our bonus short hand episodes exclusively on Amazon Music or by subscribing to Wondry Plus in Apple Podcast podcasts or the Wondry app. It's May 1998 in New York City. A reporter named Adam Pennenberg is in his office talking to his editor. Adam has a square jaw and a mop of black hair. He's a writer for Forbes' online magazine,

which is called, and I am 100% serious about this, Digital Tool. Adam's whole job is covering the internet, which at this point is so new. Google won't even be founded for a few more months. There aren't many journalists on this beat, which is why Adam's editor is so confused. How the hell did he get scooped by the New Republic?

They somehow managed to get an exclusive on a teenage hacker who broke into the website of a big California software company called Juke My Chronics. It's a crazy story. Adam scans the title, Hack Heaven, and stares at the byline, Stephen Glass. Sarah, can you read a bit of the first paragraph of the story for me? Yeah, it says, Ian Restel, a 15 year old computer hacker who looks like an even more adolescent version of Bill Gates is throwing a tantrum. I want more money.

I want a Miata. I want a trip to Disney World. I want X-Men comic book number one. I want a lifetime subscription to Playboy and throw in Penthouse. Show me the money. Show me the money. Okay, that is so ridiculous. That's just insane. Well, the rest of the story is just as wild. Stephen says that Ian's hacker name is Big Bad Bionic Boy and that when he hacked into the Juked Micronics

website, he posted every executive salary alongside several photos of nude women. He signed each page with the phrase, the Big Bad Bionic Boy has been here, baby. He even claims he interviewed a former basketball agent who now exclusively represents hackers. Stephen says the guy calls himself a super agent for super nerds. And the piece ends with Steven visiting a hacker conference. He says, everyone cheers for the big bad bionic boy at the formal dinner afterwards. This is funny to me because it was the time

when people thought hackers were really cool bad asses, like the punks of the digital age. And now we know they are just like nerds. Well, Adam's editor is pissed that Adam missed this story about these nerds. In theory, this is exactly the type of thing digital tools should be covering. But Adam actually knows a bunch of hackers, and he's never heard of any of them being represented by an agent, let alone going to a conference.

Something just doesn't smell right. So Adam goes back to his desk, fires up his enormous beige computer, and starts reporting. First, he tries to look up Juked Micronics. But this supposedly huge software company doesn't seem to have a website. The company isn't registered with the Software Publishers Association of America, the California Franchise Tax Board, or listed in the phone book. An official from the Secretary of State's office in

California says they have no record of Duke ever existing as a corporation. It's bold to create fake quotes and kind of smooth out the details of a story so that it fits a narrative you have. But potentially creating an entire company that a hacker no one has heard of hacked is so crazy.

Yeah. And it's also really suspicious. So Adam starts looking into more details from Stephen's story. Like a supposed joint initiative of 18 different state police forces coming together to take down computer fraud. Or the existence of a professional association of hackers. But Adam can't find any websites or addresses or actual people he can ask about any of these things.

He calls up federal law enforcement agencies to ask about the supposed anti-crime measure Stephen wrote about, but they have no idea what he's talking about. Eventually, Adam goes to his editor and tells him, there's something seriously off about this story. Together, they decide they need to talk to Steven. Neither of them knows this yet, but they're about to uncover an enormous story.

And it's going to send Steven's career from the front page to the recycling bin. Soon after Adam starts digging into hack heaven, Charles Lane is sitting at his desk feeling stressed out. He just had an awkward confrontation with one of his staff's most popular writers. Charles is 36 years old with thin black hair and a round clean shaven face. He kind of looks like a well-meaning poetry teacher. And he's been the editor of the New Republic for about eight months now after he was hired to replace Michael Kelly.

Charles got a call earlier today from someone at Forbes Digital Tool. They had raised some serious questions about Hack Heaven, and Charles did not have the answers. But when he asked Stephen about it, Stephen responded by playing the victim. He said he felt attacked and that Charles should be backing him up like Michael always did. But Charles can't let it go, even though it's putting him in an awkward spot. He knows most of the staff doesn't like him, even though he's a seasoned journalist and won an award for his reporting from the former Yugoslavia.

But Michael was way more popular with the writers. Lots of them are still upset about his firing, and Charles doesn't have Michael's charisma or his cachet. In fact, Hannah later says that she and her co-workers saw Charles as a, quote, parent constantly telling us to clean our rooms. Later that night, his home phone rings. The display shows Apollo Alto area code. When he picks up, a young male voice says that he's George Sims, the president of juke Micronics. Before Charles has a chance to ask any questions, the person on the other end of the line says he has no further comment on Stephen's story, and then he hangs up. The next morning, Charles sits in his office with Stephen. They're on a conference call with Adam, the digital tool writer, and his

editor. And that's when Adam drops a huge bomb. He's gonna publish a story about the lack of verifiable details in hack heaven. He's convinced it's totally made up. But first, he wants to give Stephen a chance to set the record straight. Yeah, and that's usually what happens. You know, you tell someone, hey, this is what I know.

Is this correct? Yeah, this is protocol. Well, Charles watches Stephen field questions about his sourcing. And Stephen talks pretty quickly. And while he's got an answer for everything, Charles thinks that some of it sounds kind of flimsy. Like, when Adam says that he didn't get any emails back from Stephen's sources, Stephen

just says that these people have always emailed him and he doesn't know why they aren't replying now. Then, he asks Stephen about the Juked Micronics website. Adam says at first nothing came up when he searched for it. But now, well, here's what he sees. Sarah, can you describe this screenshot for me? It is a very shitty looking website even for the time. It's like, you know, plain teal background, just black text.

There's like a short, and this is all one page, and I guess it's kind of an about me, and it's saying like, juke to my chronics. Founded in 1997, blah, blah, blah. And then there's a detailed response to the New Republic casting doubt on the story, which I personally believe is an amazing touch for a fake website to be like, well, look how real it is.

They're saying there's something wrong with the story, you know? I really admire the attention to detail in lying. I think it's really admirable. But Stephen's response is that he doesn't know much about it. After all, Adam is the tech reporter, not him. Adam's editor tries to be charitable. He suggests that maybe Stephen got trolled by a malicious source, and Stephen jumps on the idea. He says he's beginning to think that he was duped.

Adam and his editor actually apologize to Stephen for the story they're about to publish. They tell him, quote, covering hackers is hard. Oh my god. This pisses me right off. You know, he used the whole like little, I'm just a baby. Like, I'm just a young guy who's a reporter. I don't know what these hackers are. They tricked me. And it's like, well, they shouldn't be tricking you. You're a journalist. Yeah, I would agree. Well, Stephen's naive act might have worked on the digital tool, guys,

but Charles is starting to think that there might be something more devious going on below the surface. He decides that there's only one way to know for sure. He and Stephen are about to go on a road trip. Later that day, Charles asks Steven to drive him to all the places that were mentioned in Hack Heaven. He wants to see the hotel where the hackers had their conference and the restaurant where Ian and his agent negotiated with the juke mycronix guys.

So the two men hop into Steven's Honda for the world's most tense, silent road trip. They're headed to Bethesda, Maryland, and Stephen is driving very, very slowly. They walk into the lobby of a Hyde hotel where the conference supposedly happened, and Charles watches as Stephen tells him exactly where each character in the story sat and what they did.

He adds more and more details. He describes how the agent was smoking, how they had to move tables at one point. And as Steven talks, Charles' reporter's intuition kicks in. He's almost positive that Steven is lying. In fact, Charles is pretty sure that Steven has never even been in this room before. Which is crazy to me because Steven is very good at covering his tracks enough for people to believe him. You'd think he would have done this all in advance to seem confident.

Yeah, but not quite. Then they go next door to an office building that was also featured in the story. But the second they step inside the lobby, Charles sees that there's no way you could cram a hundred people into the space, like Stephen claimed in his article. Charles asks the security guard and a building engineer about the conference. And not only do they not remember it, they both tell Charles that the building was fully closed the day that Stephen said it happened. Stephen doesn't have an answer for any of this.

He just keeps repeating that he knows he was there on that day, and he's insisting that he's telling the truth. By the time he and Charles are back outside, they've reached a boiling point. Charles asks Stephen point blank if he made the story up. Stephen denies it, but Charles keeps pressing. After a full 15 minutes of this, Stephen admits that he never actually went to the conference. But he's still insisting it happened. He says that several sources told him about it, and that he reconstructed the details from there. It's the exact same maneuver he pulled with that story about the Health Watchdog group.

I feel like this is when you kind of realize how delusional Stephen is, because he thinks this is an adequate enough excuse. And he was caught in this lie and then he lies to cover it up. And I just, I don't really, like, how could he think this will help? Well, Steven and Charles get back in the Honda and head back towards the new Republic offices. But after a few minutes of driving, Steven starts sobbing. His crying is so intense that Charles actually has to take the wheel.

They pull over to the side of the road and Stephen tells his boss that he just feels so much pressure to succeed. He tells Charles that his parents want him to quit journalism altogether and become a lawyer. He claims that he's actually already started to go to law school part-time. He feels like everything is falling apart. Charles listens, but he's got his guard up. This could be more of Stephen's lies.

Then, Charles has a terrifying thought. Maybe Hackheavid isn't the only one of Stephen's stories that's filled with lies. Stephen's written more than 40 pieces for the magazine in the last two and a half years. And each one is a potential landmine. Once they get back to the office, Charles grabs a recent issue of the magazine landmine. Once they get back to the office, Charles grabs a recent issue of the magazine and reads through the last piece Stephen wrote before Hack Heaven. It's about a convention where people sold Monica Lewinsky-themed memorabilia.

When the story was published, Charles thought it was a wacky look at how people were cashing in on a scandal. But now that he's looking at it again, the story just sounds fake. Like, Stephen said there had been $80 million worth of Monica-themed items sold in just three months. He even described a vendor who was selling something they called monocondoms. Charles starts making calls, and sure enough,

pretty much none of the details in Stephen's story check out. He calls Stephen back into his office and asks about this story, only to get another round of thin, evasive answers. Charles fires Stephen. But, after talking to other staffers at the magazine, he walks it back, and he decides to suspend him for just two years instead. He knows it'll go over better with the rest of the staff.

Writers like Hanna see Stephen as a friend. And also, Stephen has only half confessed to plagiarism and Charles isn't sure of the full extent of his fraud. But Charles keeps asking other people for their advice on what he should do next. And during one of those conversations, another editor at the New Republic mentions that Stephen has a younger brother who lives in Palo Alto.

And that's when Charles makes the connection. He got a call from the so-called president of Juked Micronics, and he had Apollo Alto Area Code. It is so bonkers that after all of this, what gets him is an area code. An area code! Sarah, it's the little things. Charles knows that Stephen hasn't been making innocent mistakes. His lies have been so elaborate and so pre-planned, he's enlisted other people to help keep them up.

Charles finally makes a decision. No more holding back. Stephen Glass is about to get the closest edit of his life. The next morning is a Saturday. Charles goes into the office to pick up a few things, The next morning is a Saturday. Charles goes into the office to pick up a few things, but he's disturbed to find that Stephen is there, sitting at his computer, even though he's been suspended. Charles has a feeling Stephen's deleting evidence.

Right away, he asks him whether George Sims, the guy who called from Juked Micronics, was actually Stephen's brother. Stephen says no, but at this point, his word doesn't mean much. Charles tells Stephen to leave the office right away. Stephen asks if he can at least take some of his files off his hard drive or maybe bring his Rolodex with him. Charles is getting heated.

Finally, Stephen leaves the office for all of 15 minutes. He comes back and tells Charles he's finally ready to tell the whole truth. He says that, okay, yes, he did get his brother to pose as George Sims, but only because he couldn't get in touch with the real guy, who he had definitely talked to before. He says he was feeling so much pressure

from Charles and the Forbes reporters that he just needed a stopgap. It is so insulting that this guy walks out in a huff, comes back and is like, okay, I'm ready to tell the truth. I did lie, but it was kind of your fault. You were putting too much pressure on me. Who is capable of doing that? Oh, Stephen Glass is capable. Of course, Charles isn't buying it. He finally makes the call. Stephen is fired from the New Republic for good. Even with Stephen gone, Charles has only begun to sniff out his lies. It's time for one last all-hands fact check.

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his stories contained, quote, fabricated characters and situations. The day after that, Digital Tool publishes their piece exposing the flaws in Hack Heaven, which they call, quote, a complete and utter hoax. They also include a quote from Charles saying that he thinks the story was made up. Later, Charles learns that Stephen has been frantically calling coworkers, telling them that he's the victim of a witch hunt. He's been pleading his case to people like his former boss, Michael, and his friend, Hannah.

So that is the call from the beginning of the episode where he's like, I didn't do it. Yeah, now you understand the desperation. Stephen is pulling out all the stops, but it's just too late. Pretty soon, the scandal goes viral, or whatever the 90s version of that is. People from every major news outlet in the country start taking notice.

Over the next month, the staff at the New Republic, all of Stephen's friends and former colleagues, do the long, tedious job of fact-checking every single piece he ever published. Only this time, they're working with the assumption that each story contains at least a few lies. That must be so hard without the internet, as we know it now, to be able to comb through all of this, figure out what was true and what wasn't. I would be so mad if I was one of his colleagues who had to do all of this work because he lied.

Yeah, I'd kill him. Well, in their June 1998 issue, The New Republic publishes an editorial note that says six of the 41 articles with his byline were, quote, entirely or nearly entirely made up. At least 27 of them contain some kind of fabrication. Until recently, Stephen's career had been thriving.

But now, the magazine where he built his reputation is printing his professional obituary. About 16 years after Stephen's downfall, Hannah is sitting at a cafe in Los Angeles across the table from him. It's 2014. They haven't spoken since he called her in a panic about his firing. And now, she's here to write a piece. And this time, Stephen is the subject. Stephen's story has loomed large over American journalism,

and Hannah has watched as Stephen tried to reinvent himself again and again. He graduated from law school in 2000 and applied to the New York Bar two years later. A year after that, he decided to cash in on his own negative press and published a novel called The Fabulist, a fictionalized account of the scandal at the New Republic. Hannah received one of the more than 100 letters of apology Stephen sent to his former friends and coworkers right before publishing the book. But she felt the letters were disingenuous, and the book ended up flopping anyway. Hannah was working for Slade at the time and ended up reviewing the book for them.

She called it a continuation of Stephen's, quote, narcissistic fantasy. But she also let some more complicated feelings slip through. She said that the scandal had made her and her former colleagues wonder, quote, what in ourselves allowed us to believe all his stories? I do think a lot of it has to do with how he kind of infantilized himself and was like the young guy who was insecure and loved to gossip, you know, where they just didn't see him as someone who was capable of being that threatening, right? Yeah, pretty effective scam. A few months after Stephen's book came out in the fall of 2003, the movie Shattered Glass hit theaters, and it called bullshit on Stephen's version of events.

Hayden Christensen played Stephen, Peter Sarsgaard played Charles, and Steve Zahn played Adam, the digital tool reporter. Hank Azaria portrayed Stephen's one-time champion, Michael, and Hana got a pretty good deal. The character based on her was played by Chloe Sevigny, but apparently she complained about having to dress like Hana. I absolutely love this movie. That's why I know anything about this story, because it's really good.

It is a really good movie. Well, after the movie came out, Stephen learned that he would probably be rejected from the New York State Bar and withdrew his application. He moved to California where he eventually wound up in Venice Beach. In 2007, he was admitted to the California Bar, but the committee that oversees the exams kept appealing his acceptance.

Sarah, could you read this excerpt from one of their appeals? Yeah, it says, "'Applicant is by all accounts a perpetrator of one of the greatest frauds in journalism history. His lies penetrated deeply and impacted the magazines he worked for, his editors, colleagues, family, and friends. But the carnage didn't end there.

It spilled over and tainted the entire journalism community. You know what? Yes, obviously this is all quite true. He did something really terrible, but I don't think this is the worst thing to happen in journalism history. You're talking also about the industry that co-signed the Iraq War, right? Yeah, we are. Well, the case made it all the way to the state Supreme Court.

Hannah got asked to testify against him, but ultimately she decides not to. And now, to prepare for her profile on Stephen, she's been reading the transcripts. And they are dramatic. Stephen had 22 witnesses testify in his favor, including Marty, the former publisher of The New Republic. I'm not surprised that the racist editor who loved Stephen's fake story that was very racist is still standing by Stephen. Yeah, doesn't that make exact sense?

Stephen's attempt to become a lawyer was ultimately rejected by the California Supreme Court, which ruled against him a few years ago. So for the past decade, Stephen has been working at a personal injury law firm, first as a paralegal and then as the firm's director of special projects. He helps clients prep and refine their stories before they take the stand. And when Hannah asks Stephen if there's anything about his work that's a little like what he used to do as a journalist, he tells her, quote, it's not manipulation. It's caring. I don't coach the clients. I help them discover their story. He says that, unlike before, every story he tells now is based entirely on facts. A lot of people seem to agree that this new version of Steven is different. Hannah is one of them.

She ends her profile by writing that while plenty of people still carry wounds from his scam, it, quote, doesn't mean that the truth about Steve is elusive or subjective. It means that forgiveness is a choice, and I decided to make it. Well, Haggy, what did you learn about our terrible broken industry today? I mean, the thing is, like, not much has changed, in my opinion. Like, maybe you couldn't fabricate stuff in this exact way. But you know, there have been plenty of people who have lied the way Stephen has. They just have used, you know, technology to change it up, right?

Yeah. I mean, I have worked with a thousand versions of this guy who, like, thinks that his anxiety means that he should be able to break the rules and thinks that, you know, when he does something wrong, it's not actually a big deal. But when other people do it, it's obviously a big deal. I hate this guy and this version of this guy in our newsrooms so much. And I meet them all the time and I'm still meeting them today. Did you at least learn some new ways to defraud your publication and your editors? I mean, I don't know if I learned any new ways because I think even if I was someone who could think this way, and I'm not, I'm an angel, I think what let him do this is because he was like a young white smart guy that everyone

wanted to root for and that shielded him from a lot of scrutiny. Like I don't even think a woman could really get away with this. Yeah, I also think we would be hard pressed to be pretty new in a newsroom, just fresh off of being someone's assistant, and then get a staff writing job, and then make it to get to write the covers. Yeah. It's not likely that you're gonna get these big splashy features right out of the gate in your early to mid-20s.

And the fact that they were giving him that much room and that much trust is a huge part of the problem. There's a reason why you kind of have to build up to those stories so that everybody can learn to trust you and so that they know how you do your reporting. Well, yeah. And for Stephen, I think he never had social capital in his life. You know, he went to a school for high achievers where he wasn't, you know, extremely remarkable

by any means. And I think a lot of people get into media because it gives them some type of power. And I think he was hungry to be liked and regarded as interesting. And like, you know, obviously he was a captivating writer interesting. And, like, you know, obviously, he was a captivating writer in some sense, but, you know, he just went about this in a way that was totally dishonest.

What would you do if it turned out that I had plagiarized a bunch of the Scamfluencers episodes? Okay, why didn't you get me in on it? -♪ POP MUSIC PLAYINGah! Exactly right. -♪ See, this is the thing. If you're going to like be full of shit at work, you need to make sure you have a co-conspirator. And that was the mistake Stephen made, is he

didn't have a buddy. If you're going to do fraud, you've got to have a buddy. Also, you know, you probably shouldn't get so cocky with your lies. You know, I think he could have probably gotten away with a lot with just like a little peppering here and there.

But he invented entire stories, which to me is like so much work. It's so much work. Yeah, you're right. Okay. So smaller, more manageable lies and always tell your lies with a friend. Yeah, I think that could be the lesson. Great. You're my friend in fraud, Sarah. You're my friend. Yeah, I think that could be the lesson. Great.

You're my friend in fraud, Sarah. You're my friend in fraud, Sachi. This is Stephen Glass Bad News. I'm Sachi Cole. And I'm Sarah Haggye. If you have a tip for us on a story that you think we should cover, please email us at scamfluencers at wondery.com. We use many sources in our research. A few that were particularly helpful were Shattered Glass by Buzz Bissinger for Vanity Fair,

Lies, Damn Lies, and Fiction by Adam Penninger for Forbes Digital Tool. And hello, my name is Stephen Glass and I'm sorry by Hanna Rosen for The New Republic. Emma Healy wrote this episode. Additional writing by us, Saatchi Cole and Sarah Hagge. Sarah Eni is our story editor and producer and Eric Thurm is our story editor. Fact Checking by Meredith Clark. Sound Design by Sam Ada.

Additional audio assistance provided by Adrian Tapia. Our music supervisor is Scott Velazquez for Freeze On Sync. Our managing producers are Desi Blaylock and Matt Gant. Janine Cornelow and Stephanie Jens are our development producers. Our associate producers are Charlotte Miller and Lexi Peary. Our producers are John Reed, Yasmin Ward, and Kate Young. Our senior producers are Jenny Bloom and Jen Swan. Our executive producers are Jenny Lauer Beckman, Marshall Louis and Erin O'Flaherty for Wondry.

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