Plot

The story of a young journalist who fell from grace when it was discovered he fabricated over half of his articles from the publication The New Republic magazine.

This film tells the true story of fraudulent Washington, D.C. journalist Stephen Glass (Christensen), who rose to meteoric heights as a young writer in his 20s, becoming a staff writer at "The New Republic" for three years (1995-1998), where 27 of his 41 published stories were either partially or completely made up. Looking for a short cut to fame, Glass concocted sources, quotes and even entire stories, but his deception did not go unnoticed forever, and eventually, his world came crumbling down...—Kaliya Warner

Early 1998. Twenty-five year old Stephen Glass is the youngest of fifteen writers/editors at The New Republic, a little distributed but highly regarded - especially among those that matter, such as the President - political commentary magazine based in Washington, DC. He is seen as the wunderkind at his high school alma mater, and is well liked and respected among his New Republic colleagues. That view by his colleagues is because he is self-effacing in a lost boy way, helpful, and captivating, yet he manages to be able to be at the right place at the right time to come up with interesting story ideas. He is also hard working, doing his job while just starting law school part-time at Georgetown. The same cannot be said about the magazine's current editor-in-chief, Charles Lane, who was promoted after the most recent editor, Michael Kelly, was fired by publisher Marty Peretz. Michael's staff respected him because he stood up for them against Marty or whoever else challenged them, whereas Chuck, who was just another staff writer/editor before the promotion, is seen as betraying that loyalty to Michael by accepting the job even before Michael knew he was being let go. As with any non-fiction publication, each story is fact-checked by staff to ensure accuracy to prevent liable. However, Stephen's latest printed story begins to be questioned by journalists at Forbes online magazine, as they wished they had discovered the story, wanted to do a followup piece, but found that many of the items listed in the story could not be verified independently of the materials Stephen had given to the New Republic's fact-checkers. This work by Forbes begins an even trickier relationship between Chuck and Stephen, the latter who staunchly defends his written piece, being able eventually to back-up his sources with albeit questionable "proof". Chuck, on the other hand, has to decide how far he will go to protect Stephen, his writer, especially as Stephen gets caught in one lie after another, about which he is able to get away with solely in his self-effacing apologetic manner which got him the support of his colleagues to begin with.—Huggo

It tells the story of Stephen Glass (Hayden Christensen), who was the youngest journalist at the New Republic. This newspaper prides itself to have been read by everybody in the political field in Washington, and to be the only one in the American president's plane. Little by little, we see how things work in the editorial room: Stephen's direct boss and editor is Michael Kelly, who is constantly insisting on having every single detail checked through direct notes. The first time Stephen gets in trouble in the film it's on an article about a Republican young people convention, where he alleged they got drunk and called a prostitute. Stephen gets into trouble because the hotel manager complains that hotel rooms did not have any drink or food fridges in them, all the opposite of what Stephen had said in his article. Kelly talks with Stephen about that. Stephen comes back later admitting he has made a mistake: he saw so many mini spirits bottles and he took it for granted that they came from a mini-bar. Stephen says he's sorry, and that if Kelly wants his resignation, he'll sign it right away. However, Kelly is not about to do anything of that sort.

Stephen's girlfriend is Caitlin Avey (Chloë Sevigny), a fellow journalist at the newspaper. She is worried because Stephen has had much success lately, she's even a bit jealous. Stephen is freelancing and writing stories for other magazines, like Rolling Stones, because his news stories have always got an edge to them: he investigates, finds out the truth and talks about humourous situations and peculiar characters. Also, to Caitlin's dismay, he's even going to be busier, as he is about to start to study law, which he considers to be more prestigious. In the small row they have over this matter, Stephen blames his parents, who follow the peer pressure of their friends and think that a lawyer is the most prestigious job in the world.

Kelly is fired as editor and replaced by one of Stephens colleagues: Charles "Chuck" Lane (Peter Sarsgaard).

One of his most successful stories is about how software companies try to stop hackers from damaging their products. In a computer-geek convention, Stephen tells how a computer company hired and paid one million dollars to a hacker so that he would stop breaking their security system. That hacker signed a contract right there, and then boasted about it in front of everybody. While Stephen is telling this story at the meeting room, all journalists and editors sitting together deciding the new news stories, he jumps on his chair in the meeting room and shouts "show me the money, show me the money" emulating the hacker with a cocky attitude. Everybody knows this is the best news story for years, and they all wonder "where he gets these characters from". Stephen's news story is so appealing: the attitude, the streetwise teenagers who make the best out of it and beat computer tycoons to their money, etc... In a later scene, Amy (another reporter at TNR) is trying to copy Stephen's sense of humour, but Caitlin tells her to come back to what she does best: glossing figures, explaining in plain words economic concepts and situations, and being serious and formal at all times.

In the Forbes internet magazine, Adam Penenberg (Steve Zahn) is told off by his boss. Adam is supposed to be responsible for all the high-tech content of the subscription magazine; he didn't even get a hint of the news story everybody is talking about, that about about the million-dollar contract to the hacker. Adam calls Chuck asking for more details about the story, as he would like to go on investigating it. Stephen reads his notes and gives him some further details.

Adam starts investigating, but soon he finds out things don't add up. He calls Chuck and Stephen once again, asking where the latter had got wind of the story. Stephen fabricates the ghost-company's website, but he doesn't realise that he put it in a net section which could only be seen by AOL subscribers. He didn't think or didn't have time of fabricating a whole fake website domain. Stephen admits that he may have made a mistake over some minor details on the story, but he insists on the truth of the main article. This time, Chuck starts to get the hint that something fishy is going on. Although he doesn't dismiss Stephen yet, this time the journalist is not going to find it so easy to move on.

Caitlin supports Stephen through and through. As many more untruthful details spring to view, and Adam won't let things be, Chuck comes to the point when he insists on being taken to the location where that computer-geek convention took place right away. Stephen feels unsure, and tries to talk his way out of it, but this time to no avail. Chuck comes to realise that there are many problems with Stephen's story: the hotel where it was celebrated does not know anything about a convention of that kind, the actual room where it was supposed to have taken place is not big enough to accommodate the huge number of people Stephen says he himself saw, etc... More and more details appear missing, and the teenager who supposedly earned that million dollars is nowhere to be seen.

The pressure increases, especially on Chuck. More facts come to light proving Stephen fabricated stories, but he continues to hopelessly deny it to Chuck and is subsequently fired. Chuck faces a wall display with The New Republic's old numbers, and he starts pulling them out, re-reading Stephen's editorial contributions once again, this time with a view to finding strange details, unlikely events, non-existent names of people and companies, dates which don't hold up, etc.

Caitlin talks to Chuck. She is angry that Stephen was fired, and she is disappointed because Chuck and higher levels of management are not standing by Stephen. Chuck talks to her, saying that everybody believed what Stephen said because they all liked him, and that she should use her journalistic instinct to find out whether Stephen had been lying or not. This makes Caitlin think, and after reviewing articles, she admits that Chuck is right: they all had been fooled by Stephen's charm and his news bombshells.

The New Republic will write an editorial retracting almost half of Stephen Glass' news stories, and admitting to some more details in some more articles which cannot be put to the test concerning their veracity.

The last captions of the film say what happened to the people behind this story:

• Caitlin kept on writing for the New Republic

• Stephen did not want to comment on the film, and he dedicated full time to the study of law at university.

• Adam Penenberg's story made it to the headlines itself, and it became recorded as the first real breakthrough for internet newspapers.

>> written by KrystelClaire