The Five Dumbest Things on Wall Street This Week

Unfortunately, Blair wasn't the first reporter to cross the line between journalism and fiction without bothering to tell his editors. Reporters who seek to improve upon reality are a recurrent problem in the newspaper business.

Fortunately, we at the Five Dumbest Things Research Lab have figured out a way to have fun with this. We suggest transforming reporters' misdeeds into entertainment. A TV show, to be exact.

And what type of show is more appropriate to explore the complex interaction of fact and fiction than ... reality TV? Is Survivor real or make-believe? What about a Jayson Blair report quoting unidentified sources about the D.C. sniper? We're talking different media here, but they're the same old story.

So here's what we propose: Gather up a handful of outcast ex-reporters. Instead of making them eat rats on a remote island, give them a job. A second chance. A tryout position at a big-city daily newspaper.

Like all good reality TV shows, this one would be cruel. For starters, six unemployed people would be competing for a single job. And to heighten the on-camera tension, each reporter would be given nerve-wracking, pressure-filled assignments. High-profile stories. Stories about intensely private public figures. Stories that are impossible to report without anonymous sources. In other words, assignments that offer easy opportunities for made-up sources and made-up quotes.

It's the journalistic version of Temptation Island.

In the final episode, the person who has written the most entertaining dispatches without making stuff up -- or without getting caught -- gets the job.

The idea is perfect, we figure, for Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. (NWS Quote). The reporters would work at Murdoch's flagship U.S. paper, the New York Post. The TV show would run on Fox, the network that brought us Joe Millionaire. This show has "synergies" written all over it.

Our working title for the show is either "Write and Wrong" or "Going Postal."

People usually pay dearly for our research. But Rupert, this time we'll skip our regular $20 million fee.