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Shattered Glass

In 1998, Stephen Glass is an associate editor at The New Republic. The youngest of the magazine's staff, he is popular with his colleagues for his entertaining stories. He serves under editor Michael Kelly, who holds loyalty with the writers. However, conflict between Kelly and publisher Marty Peretz results in Peretz firing Kelly. Reporter Charles Lane is promoted by Peretz to replace Kelly, despite being disliked by the staff due to his cold reputation.

Glass writes a story entitled "Hack Heaven" that details a teenage hacker being hired by a software firm he infiltrated. The story reaches Forbes Digital Tool, where reporter Adam Penenberg finds no corroborating evidence. When contacted by Penenberg about being unable to reach Glass's sources, Glass provides a number with a Palo Alto area code for the firm that, when dialed, goes immediately to voicemail. Lane later receives a brief call from an individual who identifies himself as the firm's chair. Glass and Lane also partake in a conference call with the Forbes staff, further eroding the story's credibility and prompting Glass to claim his sources tricked him.

Lane, looking to protect Glass from the Forbes staff, has Glass take him to the convention center where the story took place but learns it was closed during the events Glass wrote about. He also discovers that the restaurant where the hackers had dinner afterwards closes in the mid-afternoon. With the story contradicted by this information, Glass tells Lane he only relied on sources for information and falsified his first-hand experiences to improve the story. Lane decides to suspend Glass instead of firing him due to his popularity, but upon discovering that Glass's brother lives in Palo Alto, he realizes that Glass had his brother pose as the firm's chair. After confronting Glass with this knowledge, Lane re-reads Glass's previous stories and realizes that several were falsified. With his deception exposed, Glass is fired by Lane.

Lane receives support from The New Republic staff for bringing Glass's deception to light, while the magazine's attorney questions Glass over which stories of his were fabricated. Closing titles reveal that Penenberg's article on Glass was hailed as a breakthrough for internet journalism, The New Republic determined that 27 of Glass's 41 stories were either partially or completely fabricated, Kelly was killed while covering the Iraq War, Glass earned a Juris Doctor degree from Georgetown and wrote a novel fictionalizing his own life called "The Fabulist", and Lane joined The Washington Post.