Shattered Glass Page #8

- Thank you.

- You're welcome.

I always forget to ask you.

How are your studies coming?

Their fine.

I'm... just buried.

You're buried.

Right.

Okay. I should probably let you

get back to it.

- Is there anything you need?

- No. Good night, David.

Good night.

Thanks, Steve.

I got it.

- Hello?

- Chuck? It's Steve.

Hi, Steve.

Sorry to be calling

so late.

I was just wondering...

did you get a call from

the Jukt guy? George Sims?

- I did, yeah.

- Yeah. I was just sitting here,

and I realized that I'd given him

your home number

without asking you first.

And I wanted to apologize.

- It's fine.

- Sort of a prick, didn't you think?

I couldn't really tell

because he hung up so fast.

- Are you at home, Steve?

- No. Why?

I left a message

on your machine.

Those Forbes guys

want to talk to us again.

There's a conference call

at :
a.m.

Sure.

Sounds like a party.

Yeah?

- Okay, night, Chuck.

- See you in the morning.

That's weird.

Morning.

Hey.

- Want a laugh?

- Sure.

- The website for Jukt Micronics.

- Oh, good.

Yeah, you might not think so

when you see what's on it.

I don't think Mr. Sims

liked our piece that much.

Yeah. And I found this too,

from my fridge for some reason.

Ian Restil's agent,

Joe Hiert.

I'd like to pause for a moment.

You can't go into the world of

journalism without first understanding

how a piece gets edited

at a place like "TNR."

This is a system that Michael Kelly

brought with him from The New Yorker.

A three-day torture test.

If your article's good,

the process will only make it better.

If your article's shaky,

you're in for a long week.

A story comes in,

and it goes to a senior editor.

He, or she, edits it

on computer,

then calls in the writer,

who makes revisions.

Then the piece goes to a second editor,

and the writer revises it again.

Then it goes through a fact-check,

where every fact in the piece...

every date, every title,

every place or assertion

is checked and verified.

Then the piece goes to a copy editor,

where it is scrutinized once again.

Then it goes to lawyers,

who apply their own burdens of proof.

Marty looks at it too. He's very

concerned with any kind of comment

the magazine is making.

Then Production takes it, and lays

it out into column inches and type.

Then it goes back on paper,

then back to the writer,

back to the copy editor,

back to editor number one,

and editor number two, back to

the fact-checker, back to the writer,

and back to Production again.

Throughout, those lawyers

are reading and re-reading,

looking for red flags,

anything that feels uncorroborated.

Once they're satisfied, the pages

are reprinted and it all happens again.

Every editor, the fact-checkers...

they all go through it one last time.

Now, most of you will start out

as interns somewhere.

And interns do a lot of fact checking,

so pay close attention.

There's a hole

in the fact-checking system.

A big one.

The facts in most pieces can be checked

against some type of source material.

If an article's on,

say, ethanol subsidies,

you could check for discrepancies

against the Congressional Record,

trade publications,

LexisNexis,

and footage from C-SPAN.

But on other pieces,

the only source material

available

are the notes provided

by the reporter himself.

Steve?

This doesn't look like

a real business card to me.

Yeah, I know.

That's the kind of clown this guy is.

He won't even pay

to have real cards made.

All right.

- My office at : okay?

- Yeah.

Good morning.

A few other people

we can't seem to locate...

Julie Farthwork, Frank Juliet

and Ian Restil's agent,

Joe Hiert.

We called the numbers you gave us,

got voicemails for all three.

And the e-mails were sent back

"No address" or "Account closed."

Really? 'Cause I've e-mailed them

about a million times each.

Hiert's online all day long.

Did you call these people

and get them directly?

No, I always left messages

and spoke to them

when they called me back.

And the references in the article

to Nevada law enforcement officials.

Was Jim Ghort

the only one you spoke to?

- Yes.

- Do you have a number for him?

- Yeah, definitely.

- By the way, what was your basis

for writing that Jukt

was a big-time software company?

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