Retraction of Stephen Glass article follows critical opinion by California Supreme Court
Readers of Harper’s Magazine may have the California Supreme Court to thank for the latest correction of a purported nonfiction article by Stephen Glass.
Published in 1998, the “Prophets and Losses” article has now been retracted by Harper’s after a recent letter from Glass. It is the first retracted article in the magazine’s more than 150-year history, a representative tells the Los Angeles Times (sub. req.).
“I lied to the staff of Harper’s. I fabricated in interviews about this story. I engaged in egregious misconduct,” Glass, who also returned a $10,000 fee, writes in a letter published in the magazine’s January 2016 issue. “This story should not be relied upon in any way.”
Why come clean now? It appears that Glass may still be hoping to win admission to the California bar, to which he was denied admission last year on character and fitness grounds, columnist Michael Hiltzik suggests. By the time he is eligible to reapply in 2017, Glass will need to to show that he has corrected past misdeeds.
The Georgetown University law graduate did not respond to a Times phone message left at the Beverly Hills law firm at which he is employed as a nonlawyer.
Glass’ fall from grace as a staff writer for the New Republic because of widespread fabrication was the subject of a movie, Shattered Glass. The New Republic long ago corrected 27 of 41 articles for which Glass had been given credit.
However, Glass was criticized by the California Supreme Court last year for an “evasive” response to a question about whether he had corrected the record concerning his work as a journalist. He said he had relied on his lawyers to do so, but hadn’t checked to see if they had, the court noted.
Spokeswoman Giulia Melucci of Harper’s said the magazine’s editors asked Glass, through his lawyers, in 1998 to “give us an accounting of what was true or false but there was no response” at that time, Hiltzik reports.
Related coverage:
ABAJournal.com: “Top Calif. court nixes Stephen Glass bar application over the ex-journalist’s deceit years ago”
See also:
Vanity Fair: “Shattered Glass”
