Journalism’s poster boy for making-things-up is on a whirlwind spree to throw money over the affair, and he’s starting with $10,000.
Stephen Glass, a reporter who was discredited after it was discovered that he had fabricated entire interviews and sources, wrote a check for $10,000 to Harper’s Magazine this week as repayment for a story he wrote in 1998. According to The New York Times, Glass plans to repay other outlets as well.
He wrote in a letter to Harper’s that he is “very sorry” and has a “vague memory” that he was paid between $5,000 and $7,000 for a piece. The letter is now published online:
“I want to make right that part of my many transgressions. I recognize that repaying Harper’s will not remedy my wrongdoing, make us even, or undo what I did wrong. That said, I did not deserve the money that Harper’s paid me and it should be returned.”
Glass, who at 25 was one of the most popular and sought-after reporters in media, was revealed by journalist Adam Penenberg to have fabricated large parts, if not all, of his stories. Penenberg called one piece of Glass’s a “complete and utter hoax.”
As The New Republic wrote last year, Glass has of late been trying to become a lawyer, living in Venice Beach with a “rotating cast of foster pets.”
Glass now holds a position directing “special projects” for the law firm Carpenter, Zuckerman and Rowley, where he is, as The New York Times points out, “Not an Attorney.”
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