I don't get it. People always tell you that so-and-so is a hard worker because he hangs around the office after hours doing goodness knows what. Via Eschaton, here's an example of this nonsense:

“Judy Miller is a tireless and absolutely relentless reporter,” [managing editor Jill] Abramson told New York Magazine. “In the Washington bureau, she was often the last reporter still working, sometimes making phone calls until the wee morning hours.”

I don't believe it's really reasonable to demand ethical behaviour from everybody all the time, but outright deception ought to be kept to a minimum. Governments spend enough time and money (your money) bragging about how good they are that any reporter who does their work while pretending to be a journalist is making a fool of the public all around.

A few months ago I read The Fabulist, a book by former TNR editor Stephen Glass. It's engaging, funny, but most of all frightening. If you've ever been caught in a stupid lie by your teacher, spouse or employer, you'll shudder at the scenes of reckoning in the first half of the book.

Oh—sorry. That's just me. I didn't mean to imply that most people aren't Christian martyrs when it comes to the truth.

Anyway, that's all very entertaining. The interesting part is this: once outed as a liar, Mr Glass found that his friends and colleagues would no longer speak to him for his horrible deed. They were aghast, they were angry, they couldn't understand how he could just make up stuff. How could lies ever appear in a magazine??!! Is Elvis not, in fact, seen every day, somewhere? Nothing like this had ever happened before in the whole history of the fourth estate. To hear them tell it he, was worse than Sawney Bean: Lied to His Bosss. Undermined the Profession. Hurt All Journalists, Because Trust, You Know, Bla Bla Bla. And Moreover Bla. An unforgiving reflex is found in this piece on Slate by Virginia Heffernan. She concludes that Mr Glass is not truly repentant.
So there you are. A pariah, because he made up stories in order to amuse people. Shame! He probably misled a lot of people with his nonsense about hackers and stuff.

And now, on the other hand, we have this highly-motivated person who stays late talking on the phone in order to denigrate the work of Mr Joseph Wilson for the purpose of provoking a senseless war in which almost two thousand US soldiers have been killed.

So it's probably a good thing that Miller is getting the First Amendment Award . That'll teach people: Come big or stay home.