In the late 1990s, as the stock market boomed and a President argued that fellatio wasn't really sex, ethics and morality had become terms that corporate America viewed as quaint relics of the past. This was the New Market. You did what was necessary to get ahead, and if it meant "bending" the established rules, would anyone find out? Journalist Stephen Glass (played here by Hayden Christensen) didn't think so. After starting out as a hungry, promising journalist for the New Republic (the "in-flight magazine of Air Force One"), Glass discovered that he could make a bigger splash with less effort if he faked facts and sources. Soon, he was making up entire stories, and there was a big enough hole in the New Republic's fact-checking process that he was able to get away with it. 27 of the 41 stories he wrote for the magazine were partially or entirely false, and Glass was only caught by accident, when an on-line magazine tried to check his sources and figured out that they didn't exist.

Shattered Glass, the feature debut of Hollywood screenwriter Billy Ray, meticulously chronicles the rise and fall of Glass. Among other things, it shows how he used little things to ingratiate himself with his co-workers, how he constantly played the innocent, and how he squirmed, connived, and twisted to escape the ever-tightening noose. Ray is careful never to demonize Glass. This portrayal avoids one-sidedness, but Glass' actions and accountability speak for themselves. Telling a secretary that her lipstick looks good does not counterbalance falsifying a story about hackers.

It's difficult to tell from the movie whether Glass is a good journalist. He certainly has the capacity to schmooze and mingle, which are more important than ethical considerations in many aspects of today's corporate world. Hayden Christensen (taking a break from turning into Darth Vader) provides an unsettling portrayal of Glass. He presents the character as a wide-eyed and seemingly naive kid, with a lot of childish mannerisms, and an almost pathological need to be liked. Hank Azaria plays Glass' first editor, Michael Kelly, who demanded the highest level of journalistic honesty from his writers. (In a tragically ironic postscript to the story, Kelly became the first journalist killed during the recent Iraq conflict, while Glass may once again have found employment.) Other supporting players include Chloλ Sevigny and Melanie Lynskey as editors who support Glass, Peter Sarsgaard as the man who eventually has to fire him, and Steve Zahn as the on-line reporter whose dogged persistence brings the scandal into the open.

One question remains open to interpretation at the film's end: Why did Glass do what he did? Was he just lazy? Was he a pathological liar? Was he intrigued by the idea of fooling people into believing the stories he fabricated? The truth is probably a mixture of these possibilities. One thing is clear: although Glass acknowledges that what he did was "wrong," he doesn't see it as anything more than a minor infraction.

Integrity is one of the cornerstones upon which reliable journalism is based, and, when it is called into question, we begin to doubt everything we read in newspapers and magazines and see on television. The recent Jayson Blair/New York Times incident has re-enforced the idea that, while most members of the media are forthright and hard-working, there are exceptions. Glass was not the first, nor will he be the last, but he was caught in a very public way, and his trial in the media represented the first such Internet-fueled scourging of a journalist. Shattered Glass may be light when it comes to psychological questions, but its detailed accounting of Glass' actions makes for fascinating viewing. Most importantly, however, it raises questions about how much reliability we should place in our everyday sources of news if faking stories is so simple.