WELL THIS IS SUPER AWKWARD: An Update On The Stephen Glass Story

Well do I feel stupid. After rediscovering the article (I have a printed copy on my desk) online, I have found that my copy was indeed missing 5/6 of the article. I have corrected my mistake now, and have seen that the article is much better than I presumed it to be. I must admit, despite my own mistake, (which does make me look quite dumb, I am aware) I feel that Vanity Fair should let you print out full articles, as to stop this from happening to other people. I will admit this mistake, as it was a big one. The article became much more informative and quite frankly, more interesting as it went on. My apologies to Buzz Bissinger for slamming his writing, as it got much better. I guess one thing I can take from this (besides to always check millions of times that I have the whole story) is that the beginning of an article does not fully always represent the whole thing, just as a sample statistic of a population does not represent the whole world. From now on, I will not simply let the first page grab my attention, I will read a whole story before deciding on it's entertainment value and purpose. For your own enjoyment, and a few laughs at your own expense, I have left my TOW up. In addition, I ask you, as you read my TOW to read only the first page of this article. http://www.vanityfair.com/magazine/archive/1998/09/bissinger199809
You will understand my viewpoint (I hope). After you have read my TOW and ONLY that piece of the article, I suggest reading the rest, because it turned out to be very good. Once again, my apologies to Buzz, Vanity Fair, and to myself for being super dumb.

TOW #3 Shattered Glass by Buzz Bissinger from Vanity Fair 1998

Wow. I have to admit, I was quite disappointed in this article. I feel like the Stephen Glass controversy deserved so much more coverage from Vanity Fair. In fact, I feel like it kind of glossed over the whole scandal (despite the fact that it was incredibly interesting) and focused on the life and reasoning of Glass. To be honest, the article didn't do such a great job of that either. It was short, not very factual, and it all seemed crammed together to fit a deadline. What could have been such a great exposé was simply a great big disappointment. Since I took journalism last year, I’ve been very interested in the whole situation (what with the lies, the drama, the obscenity (in a very legal and school appropriate manner, just to be clear)) and to read this article, the article that supposedly spurred the movie Shattered Glass, has been a goal of mine for some time. As a follower of the scandal, the article did not meet expectations, and I will continue to search for better exposés on the scandal itself. This article was simply not what I was looking for. The author seemed much to focused on style and rhetoric to effectively depict the heart of he story, skirting around its edges like a man who simply didn’t have the facts. The only mildly interesting thing that I took away from this crap, full of useless imagery and what I took to be an appeal to pathos, or at least some sort of human curiosity, was that in his past, Glass was involved with a play group who once did a piece on a “Washington journalist caught up in conspiracy and corruption” (p1). The author even managed to ruin that though, because instead of simply letting you think about that, coming to your own conclusion, he literally spells out what it meant on the next page. To me, as both an interested reader and a writer, I felt this made it seem as though the author was disrespecting his audience, saying that they weren’t smart enough to come up with this conclusion on their own. I was offended, and will be looking elsewhere for more information on the Glass controversy as this article was insufficient and poorly done.

TOW #2 A Closer Look At The Kitchen (AKA A Rhetorical Analysis of CLOROX WIPES)

Oh, advertising. It's a cut-throat business. Everyone is trying to get ahead of everyone else; nowadays, you can find advertising everywhere, even in your own kitchen, where I found these Clorox wipes. The Clorox company has many competitors and it is their responsibility to not only make sure that their product better than everyone else's, but also to make sure that the product looks best as well. Through their clever advertising skills, the Clorox brand presents their wipes in an effective manner that looks professional, but gets their point across. The wipes look like this:

As you can see, the logo for Clorox is right in the center of the bottle. This placement was strategic, as it becomes the most important thing on the bottle and sticks in the mind of the buyers. That way, when they go back to the store to get new wipes, they remember, “CLOROX.” On the back is an explanation of how to properly use the wipes, including precautionary statements etc. This stuff is required on the packaging, and so the print is relatively small. The company does not want buyers to focus on the negative things (what the product can not do, what dangers come with it etc.) and so they put this information in almost unreadable print. Also, the information is on the back of the product, so as to not appear when stocked in stores. Buyers may not even realize it is there until after they have bought the product. The second biggest font on the bottle states the purpose of the wipes, explaining that they are disinfecting, and the third biggest is a key point, perhaps the most important (as you are supposed to think) thing about the wipes. They “Kill Cold and Flu Viruses.” However, if you look closely, you can see that there is an asterisk next to the words. After careful inspection, I have (FINALLY) found the corresponding asterisk, which is in font that I can barely read on an obscure corner of the front under the “Bleach Free” sign. Since the first piece of text does not specify which types of viruses are killed, it is implied that most, if not all are killed by using these wipes. The small print clarifies for everyone, the wipes only kill two viruses. Though this means that Clorox has deceived it’s consumers, isn’t that the core of advertising? Manipulating words to your own advantage? The rhetoric used by this company allows them to effectively achieve the purpose of looking the best, even though it may not be the truth.

TOW #1 Article "What I've Learned: Michael Wright" Esquire

Originally published in January, only a few months after the horrendous attacks that occurred on 9/11/2001, one survivor tells us his story. A heart wrenching account of the terror attacks provides depth and knowledge to the average public on what really happened to one man, and how it changed his life forever. Though when published the article served to provide this inside account, it has done so much more. This interview brought up emotional events for everyone involved, even just by reading. There is so much unintentional imagery of horrific events that he witnessed and the imagery resurfaces images and memories of that day, this article becomes a segue to personal reflection, begging the question, “Where were you during 9/11?” It makes you think about the importance of family and how lucky you are to have them. As much as 9/11 put the world into perspective for this man, his interview puts it into perspective for everyone. Michael Wright isn’t sure why he was saved from death on this day, especially when the lives of his friends were taken. However, he is grateful everyday that he was saved, and we can all take a lesson from him. Life is important and you should enjoy every second of it especially with the people you love. Even those who were not personally affected by the tragedies on this day will be affected by this man’s story of both the attacks and life after them. He provides a new spin by speaking on the aftermath of the attacks (this is an edition of What I’ve Learned after all) and speaks of his trials with therapy, including a checklist of things he can no longer do or enjoy. (It is very apparent that he, among other survivors, now suffers from severe post traumatic stress disorder.) This story is just as heartbreaking as it is heartwarming, and reminds us all of a terrible time in history so that it may never be repeated again. 
Read the article: http://www.esquire.com/features/what-ive-learned/ESQ0102-JAN_WTC_rev

IRB Intro: All The President's Men

Last year, I took Jourrnalism Today here at Wissahickon. We learned many things about journalism itself, how to write it, what it means, etc. However, what I found most interesting about the class was the two real life journalism controversies (it's funny really, always a journalist looking for the worst.) Nonly did these events actually happen, but they were REALLY interesting. We focused on two controversies, Stephen Glass's story, and the Watergate Scandal. I liked Glass's story most of all, and I researched it a ton. In fact, I was considering reading his book as my IRB. However, as per usual, Glass could not show the truth, and his novel "The Fabulist" was classified as a fictional account of his life (this is complete and utter crap). So, I moved on to the next scandal. Watergate. Since I really enjoyed learning about it, I have picked up the novel, "All The President's Men" which details the entire account from the perspective of authors Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward. I hope to shed some new light on the scandal, and learn more aboutb what went into its discovery in this book.