
The rise & fall of Stephen Glass the real-life journalist who ruined his career by writing fictional articles for The New Republic magazine The film set in scandal-frenzied Washington DC at the end of the Clinton era portrays Glass (Hayden Christensen) as a mild-mannered precocious & charismatic journalist whose successes quickly accrue Glass is a darling to the magazine&s staff & to the sources who feed his stories But when Christopher Lane (Peter Sarsgaard) replaces editor Michael Kelly Glass finds his work under much greater scrutiny Glass&s writing has been suspect all along & he is finally found out by an Internet-based media reporter (Steve Zahn) who does his own fact-checking As more of the facts emerge the film pits integrity & trust against Glass & his desire to entertain