X-Message-Number: 7631 Subject: Re: CryoNet #7609 - #7618 Date: Mon, 03 Feb 1997 10:26:54 -0600 From: Will Dye <> In Message #7616, Garret Smyth writes: >"Just >mutiply your membership by a hundred" I was told, "who's going to check?". >...according to the journo, big numbers make good press, >and a little exaggeration for a good story hurts no one. I have trouble >with this idea. I'd be grateful for other's input. That a journalist would even suggest this should itself be a scandal. If the journalist is so unethical that s/he would promote lying, it's worth speculating that the journalist plans to gleefully pounce on the resulting scandal (much more juicy to expose a fraud than to have Yet Another Story about oddballs trying to do something unusual). His suggestion to you was to lie in order to make the one story look a bit better, never mind the truth or the downstream consequenses. I contend that unless he was just testing you, he adheres to that philosopy himself. My advice is to tell the truth. You might even consider calling a competing news outlet, and have them secretly record your source repeat these suggestions to you. --Will Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=7631