Notorious fabricator Stephen Glass says he wants to pay back the news outlets that paid him years ago for now-discredited stories.
This month, he sent a $10,000 check to Harper’s Magazine, which paid him at the time for a 1998 article that he fabricated, the New York Times reported. Glass said he thought he was paid about $5,000 to $7,000 so the extra money was for interest. (Harper’s spokesperson Giulia Melucci told the New York Times it was depositing his check and noted that Glass previously unsuccessfully asked Harper’s publisher John R. MacArthur to back his bid to become a lawyer.
“Years ago, I wrote to you apologizing for my many lies,” Glass wrote in a letter to the magazine uploaded by the Times. “I wanted to write to you again to reiterate my apology. What I did was wrong on every level and I am truly sorry. I deeply regret my lies and misconduct.”
He said he wanted to apologize in person if Harper’s was open to that but acknowledged “It seems awfully disrespectful to hurt someone and then periodically force them to listen to your apologies.”
His letter stationary identifies him as “not an attorney” but “director of special projects” for Carpenter, Zuckerman & Rowley, LLP.
He went on: “I want to make right that part of my many transgressions. I recognize that repaying Harper’s will not remedy my wrongdoing, make us even, or undo what I did wrong. Repayment does nothing to correct my violation of the readers’ and editors’ trust.” That said, I did not deserve the money that Harper’s paid me and it should be returned.”
Clara Jeffery tweeted that Glass e-mailed her to say he didn’t leak his apology letter to the Times and that he wants to re-pay the other outlets that published his bogus work. Below see some of her tweets:
Jeffrey also wrote that she asked Glass to “tell me, finally, what/how much/if all the Harper’s piece was made up.”
Jeffery also pointed out that “Glass was denied admission to bar specifically b/c he did NOT come clean with pubs — including @Harpers — until decade later.”
Adam Penenberg, who first exposed Glass’s lies, wrote for PandoDaily last year at length about Glass’s scandal and attempts to be admitted to the bar.