If there is one thing deemed worse by journalism's many critics than the cynical manipulation of reality in pursuit of the saleable news story it is, surely, the deliberate fabrication of the facts themselves – the invention of stories and sources, the presentation of lies as truth. Chuck Tatum in Ace in the Hole may have ‘manufactured’ problematic reality in a manner which is indefensible to any but the most cynically commercial of news editors but his story was at least founded on an actual event, in the reportage of which he then expended considerable newsgathering and reporting energy (albeit without concern for the victim of his manipulation). Lies were told in the process of turning his predicament into a news story, but Leo Minosa did exist, and he was stuck in a cave. Richard Gere's Ike in Runaway Bride got himself into trouble because of ‘journalism lesson number one. If you fabricate your facts you get fired’. But he was guilty principally of laziness in fact-checking the lead supplied by a source encountered in a bar (and the runaway bride was, in fact, a serial jilter of fiancés at the altar). The true journalistic fabricator avoids even this outlay of effort and simply makes things up, gambling that he or she will not be found out.