Should disgraced journalist Stephen Glass be admitted to the California Bar?

Don't think anyone suggested otherwise.

 

Yes, you should.

I have a high regard for journalism.

 

It seems he's saying that journalists are being hypocritical and judgmental with their snarky comments about lawyers' ethics, considering lawyers have a mechanism for screening and disciplining members of the profession for ethical violations and journalists don't.

Can't say I saw anything that implied journalists don't serve constitutional function and that journalism isn't "an essential cornerstone of our society."

 

But Creosote, he's right. Or I guess he was underestimating used-car salesman, but the point stands regarding journalists.

 

I am sure journalists talk about ethics on a higher plane.

I am also quite sure we all know of many ethical violations that have been committed, discovered by bosses, and swept under the rug.

 

You cannot have true journalism without the highest of ethics.

You can talk about all of the exceptions to that rule, and all of the hacks who are only doing this because they work cheap, and nothing you say will change that fundamental fact.

 

Thank you for posting this. I just read it, and it is spot on. Frankly, this is a pretty good critique of many state bar associations/state supreme courts.

 

I'm not defensive. There's plenty wrong with journalism, and with journalists. I just think your shtick is beyond tiresome.

 

Yes, I made a comment about lawyers being unethical based on the stereotype that lawyers are unethical. It was supposed to be ironic and I stand behind my stereotype-based judgement. Are journos unethical? Well, gee, what was Stephen Glass before he tried being a lawyer?

 

Sure he did. He committed fraud, a felony, against his employers (which materially damaged their businesses) by intentionally providing them with journalistically unsupportable product. Fuck being admitted to the BAR -- he should have gone to jail.

The technical definition would probably depend to some extent on a case-by-case basis whether he was writing stories on a work-for-hire arrangement or selling them in a freelance relationship, but in either case the magazines would certainly contend and probably be able to prove their working relationship was based on the presumption his stories were true at least to a level of reasonable doubt.

Sloppy reporting -- factual errors in copy, misinterpretation of events, etc etc., is professionally embarrassing and not good for a continuing working relationship, but if the misstatements of facts can even plausibly be argued to be mistakes made in a good-faith effort to do an acceptable job, it does not rise to the level of fraud.

There was no doubt whatever Glass's material was not true: he fabricated it out of thin air. This wasn't misspelling 'Joe Hiert's' name as "Joe Hiart' -- Joe Hiert did not exist.

Guilty of fraud.

 

If he's salaried, can that be theft by false pretense?

 

I would guess so; I'll check it out next time I stay at the HIEx.