Motor City Madness Keeps Reporter on His Toes As Mayor Faces the Music

DETROIT -- I can never understand why reporters have to make things up, fabricate or embellish stories. New York and Washington are usually the sites of the reporter fiction factories. Not surprisingly, the same media venues slavishly served the Bush administration's propaganda machine, peddling the monstrous lies used to sell the war in Iraq. In Detroit, our biggest challenge as reporters is often convincing people that events really did happen. The idea of making up facts and spinning a yarn is unheard of around here. Not that the local media is blessed with more virtuous journalists or not prone to temptation, but with so many incredible events routinely unfolding in Detroit, what kind of fool would be tempted to turn to fantasy?