Seattle Nice Are You Mad At Me? Episode 2: We Talk to Adam Penenberg, Who Uncovered the Deception at the Heart of "Shattered Glass"
Check out a preview of the latest episode of Are You Mad at Me?, the podcast about the movie Shattered Glass hosted by PubliCola co-founders Erica Barnett and Josh Feit. Shattered Glass, starting Hayden Christensen, Peter Sarsgaard, Chloe Sevigny, and Steve Zahn (among many other names you'll recognize), is about a journalism scandal in the late 1990s in which a reporter, Stephen Glass, was found to have fabricated dozens of stories for The New Republic, Harpers, and many other traditional media outlets.
Our guest for this month's show, Adam Penenberg (portrayed by Zahn in the film), was working for an early online outlet called Forbes Digital Tool when his editor, Kambiz Foroohar, demanded to know why he'd been scooped by Stephen Glass on a story about teenage hackers.
As we now know, the story was completely fabricated—and Penenberg was the one who unraveled the fraud. In our interview, Penenberg tells us what it was like to uncover the story and reflects on what it was like to be a reporter for a digital startup going up against a venerable institution like The New Republic. He also offers his thoughts on why Glass decided to fabricate stories instead of just reporting them, and tells us what it was like talking to Steve Zahn as he was developing his character for the movie.
Listen, like, and subscribe to Are You Mad at Me? on Apple or wherever you get your podcasts.
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