Roots was the epic 1970s miniseries that traced several generations of black Americans from slavery to modern times. It dramatized the resilience of Africans brought here in chains as they triumphed despite brutal racism.

The Claudine Gay story, on the other hand, is about how elites at one of America’s most respected institutions forfeited honor, integrity, and truth to virtue-signal their holy liberalism.

In fact, the Claudine Gay movie has already been made. It was called Shattered Glass and came out in 2003. …

In its best scene, the film depicts the moment when editor Charles Lane explodes at reporter Caitlin Avey, who has been defending Glass. Lane, the one honorable person left on staff, has to jackhammer through the liberal groupthink to find Avey’s conscience — and her sense of honor. “He handed us fiction after fiction and we printed them all as fact, just because we found him entertaining,” he says. Then he drops the bomb: “It’s indefensible. Don’t you know that?”

[Shattered Glass is an excellent film, and one that should be required reading in J-schools. That line Mark quotes is the crux of the New Republic scandal and the problem with modern media to this day. And Mark’s correct — this is why someone with the threadbare scholarship of Gay could get hired as president of Harvard. They want to tell themselves fictions because the fictions are more entertaining. Read it all. — Ed]