History Film / ShatteredGlass

* ImplausibleDeniability: Stephen's story is destroyed for good when the building where he claimed the hacking convention was held is found to be closed on Sundays, the day Stephen's piece took place. Also, the building definitely did not look like it could hold as many people that Glass said attended the event. His response: "All I know is that I was here."

** There are ''many'' other examples. He presents the business card of the hacker's agent and it was clearly just printed on a piece of cardboard. Jukt Micronics' website is an all-text AOL page. The restaurant he claims the hackers ate dinner at closes after lunch hours. Each time he retreats into other lies.

* HeroWithBadPublicity: In contrast to the [[VillainWithGoodPublicity well-liked Glass]], Chuck Lane is rather distant, formal, and a bit of a stuffed-shirt, and viewed as more of a distrusted interloper after he got the job previously held by a popular editor. Deconstructing this is essentially the crux of Lane's angry rant to Caitlin after he's fired Glass and she confronts him about it, saying that while everyone might hate him they ''all'' allowed Glass to drag the magazine's name through the mud purely because they liked him.

** In the movie, Michael Kelly is portrayed as a rather soft-spoken, gentle and fatherly individual who sticks up for his reporters, including Stephen Glass. While the "sticks up for his reporters and Glass" part is certainly true to life, as [[http://www.vanityfair.com/magazine/1998/09/bissinger199809 the article the movie is based on notes]] the real Kelly could be a lot more aggressive. It's stated that he responded to at least two individuals who challenged the veracity of articles that Glass wrote with very combative letters full of personal attacks. While this may appear to be a case of NeverSpeakIllOfTheDead because Kelly was killed while reporting on the Iraq War before the movie's release, he was still alive when it was completed and this depiction was more likely intended to appease him after he threatened to sue the filmmakers.

** Kambiz Foorohar, the editor of Forbes Digital Tool. He initially chides Adam Pennenberg for not getting "Hack Heaven" before TNR, but once the truth starts to be unraveled, he stands in support of his writer. When it initially seems like Glass was simply fooled, Foorohar privately reassures Lane that while Forbes ''has'' to publish something, they aren't out to ruin Glass' career in the process.

* DeadpanSnarker: Penenberg, taking a bit of delight in unraveling the ''New Republic'''s story after being chided for not getting there first.

* DescriptionCut: After the phone conference with the Forbes Digital reporters, we see Glass with a bunch of his colleagues complaining about how Lane refused to stand up for him and is determined to throw him to the wolves. This is contrasted immediately after with a scene of Lane calling the Forbes Digital editor and asking him to go easy on Glass if possible, thus demonstrating that, while Lane isn't unquestioningly supportive of Glass, he isn't out to get him either, while the latter is clearly trying to sabotage and undermine the former with the rest of the staff in order to protect himself.

* DescriptionCut: After the phone conference with the Forbes Digital reporters, we see Glass with a bunch of his colleagues complaining about how Lane refused to stand up for him and is determined to throw him to the wolves. This is contrasted immediately after with a scene of Lane calling the Forbes Digital editor and asking him to go easy on Glass if possible, thus demonstrating that, while Lane isn't unquestioningly supportive of Glass, he isn't just out to get him and that the latter is clearly trying to sabotage and undermine the former with the rest of the staff in order to protect himself.

* IntrepidReporter: Adam Penenberg. Also Chuck Lane, ultimately, since he genuinely cares about the credibility and integrity of the magazine. Stephen Glass would very much ''like'' to be thought of as one of these, but he very much isn't.

* JerkassHasAPoint: Chuck Lane is depicted as rather cold, distant and formal towards the people he works with, and is more instinctively suspicious of Glass than the previous editor was. He also turns out to be right that the issues with Glass go beyond just some dodgy fact-checking. This is lampshaded when Glass is trying the WoundedGazelleGambit on Michael Kelly; when Glass tries to claim that Lane is only trying to bring him down due to his loyalty to Kelly, Kelly calmly replies that even if that's the case Lane is still well within his rights, since even the little that Glass has admitted to is still a fireable offence for a journalist.

** The Forbes journalists do a pretty good job of this as well. One example; after being given a phone number for George Simms, Penenberg tries calling it like everyone else only for it to go straight to answering machine. He then hits on the idea of getting someone else to call it simultaneously with him; while one call gets through to the machine again, the other call gets an engaged signal, strongly suggesting it's a single phone line rather than the multiple lines you would expect of a decent-sized business.

* PullTheThread: The final hour is basically this. Glass's increasingly desperate efforts to protect himself almost make you feel sorry for him.

** Similarly, when Chuck bluntly orders Stephen to stop his equivocation and "give him the numbers"; ''everyone'', the Forbes reporters included, reacts with stunned shock, since an editor essentially throwing one of his reporters to the wolves like that is a pretty visible sign that something somewhere is going badly wrong.

* DescriptionCut: After the phone conference with the Forbes Digital reporters, we see Glass with a bunch of his colleagues complaining about how Lane refused to stand up for him and is determined to throw him to the wolves. This is contrasted immediately after with a scene of Lane calling the Forbes Digital editor and asking him to go easy on Glass if possible, thus demonstrating that, while Lane isn't unquestioningly supportive of Glass, the latter is clearly trying to sabotage and undermine the former with the rest of the staff in order to protect himself.

* CallBack: During Stephen's [[spoiler:imaginary]] lecture to the journalism class, he notes that most stories' sources have a paper trail that a good fact-checker can track down; he cites a policy piece on ethanol subsidies as an example. What was the story Amy Brand was working on, the "boring" story that she wishes were as entertaining as Stephen's pieces? A policy piece on ethanol subsidies. Stephen's stories are all done in a way that an old-school news magazine like ''The New Republic'' will have trouble fact-checking them.

* {{Dramatization}}: The movie is based off a ''Vanity Fair'' article about the real fall-from-grace of Stephen Glass, which can be read [[https://www.vanityfair.com/magazine/1998/09/bissinger199809 here]].

* RealityIsUnrealistic: During the original screening, test audiences didn't believe that the ''New Republic'' journalists in the film could be in their twenties. Hence, is a placecard was added in the beginning of the film indicating that the average age was 26. Glass, the youngest, was 24 when the scandal broke out in 1998.

* EstablishingCharacterMoment: Chuck's first real scene with Glass has him listening to his latest story politely, but not with as much fascination as Glass' other colleagues.

* TechnicianVsPerformer: Stephen Glass is the performer to the rest of ''The New Republic'''s technicians; much is made about his quirky, entertaining pieces in contrast to everybody else's much duller policy analysis - of course Glass's stories don't have the problem of ''accuracy''.

* NotSoDifferent: After the conference call with Forbes Digital that crumbles Stephen's story, Chuck calls the Forbes editor as a mild plea to go easy on Stephen, saying that he was a troubled kid whose mistake could cost him a promising career, while the unspoken implication is that a story exposing Glass could ruin ''The New Republic''. This is the same stance Stephen's co-workers and the ''New Republic'' execs take when Chuck tries to crack down harder on Stephen once he learns the lies ran deeper than what was initially believed.
** The motivations between the scenes couldn't be more different, though: in the first, Chuck is trying to save Stephen and, by extension, the magazine from a seemingly one-time issue. In the second, Chuck is actively trying to destroy Stephen ''because'' he wants to save the magazine.

* HeroAntagonist: Charles Lane.

* DeadpanSnarker: Penenberg, taking a bit of delight in unraveling the ''New Republic'''s story.

* WorldOfCardboardSpeech: Lane to Caitlin Avey towards the end when she is still sticking up for Glass.
-->"When this thing blows there isn't gonna be a magazine. You want to make this about Mike, make it about Mike. I don't give a shit. You can resent me, you can hate me. But come Monday morning, we're all gonna have to answer for what we let happen here."

* EstablishingCharacterMoment: Chuck's first real scene with Glass has him listening to his latest story politely, but not with as much fascination as Glass' other colleagues. He simply says "It's a good story".

* SmugSnake: Glass initially comes off as a humble, self-effacing person, but the longer he keeps it up the more it becomes clear what a slimy, phony weasel he actually is. Note how subtly smug he is when his co-workers find themselves unable to compete with his exciting and quirky (and almost entirely fabricated) story pitches when presenting their comparatively duller (but real) ones.

* CouldHaveAvoidedThisPlot: The audience sees Michael Kelly nearly unravel Stephen's Young Republicans stories but doesn't push farther after his first and only question is corroborated by the hotel; at the end of the movie, a secretary points out Stephen's deception would have been a lot harder to pull off had ''The New Republic'' published photos in the magazines.

** In the movie, Michael Kelly is portrayed as a rather soft-spoken, gentle and fatherly individual who sticks up for his reporters, including Stephen Glass. While the "sticks up for his reporters and Glass" part is certainly true to life, as [[http://www.vanityfair.com/magazine/1998/09/bissinger199809 the article the movie is based on notes]] the real Kelly could be a lot more aggressive. It's stated that he responded to at least two individuals who challenged the veracity of articles that Glass wrote with very combative letters full of personal attacks. This may be the result of a certain amount of NeverSpeakIllOfTheDead, as Kelly was killed in action while reporting on the Iraq War months before the movie was released.
** To an extent Martin Peretz. In the movie he's a hands on type of boss who can be petty to the staff and has a vicious temper but genuinely wants what's best for the magazine and applauds with everyone over Chuck Lane discovering the truth about Glass. In real life Martin Peretz blamed Lane just as much as Kelly for failing to catch Glass and held both of them responsible. Even worse, Lane was immediately fired after TNR published their apology and Lane actually found out about his being fired by a ''Washington Post'' reporter who was interviewing him in regards to the Glass scandal. Then there's the claim that Glass helped pass off some of his confabulations by [[https://newrepublic.com/article/120884/new-republics-legacy-race designing them to appeal to Peretz's bigotry]].

* FacialActing: During the ''Forbes'' conference, the camera stops on Chuck Lane's face has he steadily realizes that Steve has fabricated "Hack Heaven" culminating in the WhamLine.