SACRAMENTO, Nov. 4 (UPI) -- The California Supreme Court agreed to decide whether a disgraced ex-journalist, whose many magazine stories proved to be faked, can join the state bar.
Stephen Glass, 41, wrote dozens of stories in the 1990s for publications including the New Republic, George and Rolling Stone, and left journalism after it was discovered the stories proved to contain fabricated material. His level of deceit was a scandal in journalism circles to the point Hollywood made a film, "Shattered Glass," about it, the San Jose Mercury News reported Monday.
Glass enrolled in law school and graduated. He is employed in the Los Angeles area as a paralegal, and Wednesday the Supreme Court will consider whether he will be admitted to the state bar, the newspaper said.
Glass' supporters, who include Martin Peretz, New Republic editor-in-chief while Glass was employed there, favor granting the law license, but unidentified state bar lawyers say he has not done enough to repent for errors that "tarnished the entire journalism profession."
"I don't think what Steve committed ... should condemn him to be exiled from respectable, ethical society. I think [Glass] has a great deal of responsibility for [his misconduct], and he has acknowledged it and he's suffered for it," Peretz testified in state bar court.
In court papers, Glass insists he has changed through therapy and other self-improvement methods, and noted he has worked at a law firm for six years without incident. His boss, Paul Zuckerman, has vouched for him in the Supreme Court and before the state bar.
