( courtesy of Andie, reposted at Media Squatters )
"Chuck Lane, The New Republic editor who finally caught Glass, says when you
go back and read Glass' stories with the knowledge that they're fake, it's
interesting to see why they were believed.
'One of the parts of the answer that I've settled on is that so many of his
stories revolve around stereotypes,' says Lane, now a reporter with The
Washington Post.
'They fit into the pre-existing grooves that are already etched into
everybody's heads, things we think or are predisposed to believe are true.
So he's got stories about young conservatives who turn out to be total
hypocrites about morality; he's got stories about department store Santa
Clauses who turn out to be pedophiles; and he's got a big story about a
pseudo-scientific exploration about why African-Americans are too lazy to
drive taxicabs but immigrants will.'
Peter Sarsgaard, who plays Lane, also blames gullibility as much or more
than the fabricator's mendacity.
'I think what made all of this possible for him has more to do with the
public than it does him. It's more interesting to think about why people
believe people like that than why they lie. Why is our culture only
interested in the hyperbolic, the entertaining, in journalism?' he wonders,
noting that Fox News Channel gets more buzz than PBS' NewsHour With Jim
Lehrer.'I put the moral judgment more on us, the consumers, rather than ...
the perpetrators.'"
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