There is no integrity in lying to fact checkers to ensure your piece gets on the air.

Shafer:

[...] But what joins D’Agata and Capote is this: Both love “real” facts, but when blocked by journalistic convention from the literary effects they desire, they willingly leapt that fence to create whatever rules they needed to enhance their work. Because he admits to his shape-shifting, D’Agata’s work is harmless. Capote’s book, on the other hand [...]

[...]

That other field, the much smaller one strewn with landmines, rusting rebar and barking dogs is called non-fiction — or in its less effete incarnation, journalism. Oddly, without an accurate record as our anchor, it would be difficult to create fiction, as former New York Times Executive Editor Max Frankel observed in a 1998 essay. “Wrong facts and the truths derived from them are always correctable — with more facts. Fictional facts are forever counterfeit,” Frankel writes.

I believe in journalism, not journalists, and welcome anybody with a notebook, a recorder or a 94 percent total-recall memory to help clear our field and plant it with their work as long as they have a true story to tell. As for latter-day Capotes and D’Agatas, I can give you Google Maps directions to the land of fiction.