[ WP ] You 're a corrupt journalist who is paid to always paint your benefactors ' political party in a positive light . Today something terrible happened and you 're finding it hard to spin it .

I spammed the backspace button on my keyboard for the seventh time in the last hour. Character by character, my lede disappeared, lost forever. It did n't matter; it was n't a good lede anyway. 
 
 
 In fact, that seemed to be the problem I was having. No matter what I typed, what angle I tried to approach the story from, I just could n't find a good way of doing it. Maybe the job was really beginning to wear on me. Maybe years of media manipulation, purposely spinning the horrible things politicians did was finally taking its toll. 
 
 
 From the time I was a little boy, I'd always wanted to be a journalist. I was the only 7th grader in my class ( or, being honest for a second, *anywhere* ) watching not only the Nightly News at 5, the one with Sandra Macintosh and Lance Beemer, but also The World Report that immediately followed. By the time I was in high school, I'd already started my own community paper, reporting on the local town happenings and high school sports. I even started a politics section covering the town council. If the New York Times had it, so too did the Lake Willow Reader. 
 
 
 In addition to writing for and editing the paper, high school was also the time I fell in love with politics. During sophomore year, I ran for student council and devoured every book I could on government. By junior year, no one knew as much about the current Presidential race, including some of the teachers. Along with reporting, it was my passion. 
 
 
 Once I'd gone to college, my path was clear. I was going to be a reporter. But not the kind that wrote about meaningless games on Sunday or gave three out of four stars because, my god, what a performance by Oscar McAcademy in his career-defining role. No, I was going to write about the things that really mattered. About governance and campaigns and politics; about the people who ran the world. The day I graduated, I got an offer for my dream job. 
 
 
 A big time city paper was over the moon about my resume. A lifetime of writing, combined with the go-getter qualities present in the kind of kid producing his own paper in Junior High, gave me the edge over my competition. I was hired immediately for their Washington division and moved within the week. 
 
 
 The first three years were a magical. I interviewed the biggest people in American government and I covered the biggest events. I hobnobbed with the political elite at their fundraisers and party events. Rapidly, I rose through the ranks at the paper and before I knew it, went from walking the beat on the Hill to sitting in a corner office, making more money that I should have to write my own opinions. My editorials garnered enough attention to be featured front and center on the Politics section on more than one occasion. 
 
 
 Then everything changed. The paper was sold and within a week, the new ownership changed everything. It was impressed upon us, particularly the editorial staff, that our personal views were no longer our professional views. Sure, we still had the freedom to write *how* we wanted, but *what* we wrote was going to be dictated straight from the top. It did n't matter how we voted, what we told out friends, or what our voter registration card said; all that mattered was that when we published in the paper, we were supporting only one party. There was no money in honesty and objectivity would get you canned. 
 
 
 This revolted me at first and I thought long and hard about leaving entirely. But I could n't afford it. My divorce was taking a toll on my bank account and, despite my meteoric rise through the newspaper, I was still relatively new in the industry. And the new owner had the influence and resources to make sure I started over writing police blotters. So, like my newspaper, I sold out. 
 
 
 It was hard at first, to trade my journalistic integrity for money, but the larger the numbers on the check got, the easier it became. 
 
 
 Over the next several years, I became Washington's Master of Spin. There was n't anything that I could n't shine just the right light on to make acceptable. Something about being an genuinely objective person and always attempting to see both sides of an issue that made spin easy. Political shills could n't do it; they never came off honest enough. Their arguments would be riddled with obvious bias and more attacks than facts. But my points, owing to the fact that I could look at both sides of an issue, had a subtle elegance about them. I could make the other side look foolish and weak but still retain enough credibility to be believable. I was dangerous. 
 
 
 Corporate corruption, like politicians being in bed with oil companies, became good men who cared enough about their constituents to make sure gas prices did n't destroy cash-strapped families. Hawkish foreign policy was protecting our values, being tough on security, and having the stomach to make tough decisions when needed, which the other side surely would n't do. And the constant call to reign in civil liberties was veiled as family values, keeping our country right with God, and upholding what it meant to be a patriotic American. 
 
 
 People ate it up. It was scarily simple. Before long, people were citing my columns in arguments at the bar or debates on CNN. Hell, once or twice, a sitting politician cited me on the Congressional floor to support his next big pork project. I knew it was all bullshit. But I was making great money and my name meant something. I justified it by saying that people could still make their own decision, that *I* was n't responsible, it was the paper forcing me. At first, I slept at night. 
 
 
 But it was n't long before that small voice in me, the spark that pushed me down this path from childhood, the one part of me that knew what it meant to be a real *journalist* grew to a roaring flame. I struggled with it for a long time. 
 
 
 It exploded into something undeniable the night I accepted my Award for Journalistic Excellence. When they announced my name, a moment that should have filled me with joy instead filled me with nausea. I avoided laughing hysterically during my acceptance speech only be the grace of God. The minute I was home, the award went into the back of a closet, it's resting place to this day. That night, I did n't sleep well. 
 
 
 So here I was, trying to do my job like always, but I could n't. Nothing I wrote was good. Nothing I wrote was even coherent. And the only explanation could be that I'd finally had enough. Enough of the dishonesty, enough of the spin, enough of the moral bankruptcy. It was time to tell the truth. 
 
 
 What this man had done could n't be spun. The people had to know what really happened. They had to know what this man was capable of. It was n't manners or social graces that had pushed him to do this, as I would have probably written just a week ago. This was purely, blatantly *un-American*. 
 
 
 Slowly, with great effort, like my fingers were n't used to writing with such honesty, I began to type. Soon though, they loosened and blazed across the keyboard, as the freedom of truth shaved off the rust. It was as if I was trying to make up for nearly a decade of hackneyed journalism with one article. Maybe that was unrealistic, but by God, I was going to try. 
 
 
 The next day, my column ran on the front page of the paper. But it was n't my paper. I submitted my column to our crosstown rivals who jumped at the chance to run such a devastating anti-party piece with my byline on it. It was my first front page article. In big bold letters, painted across every newsstand in the city, it read: 
 
 
 
 **Presidential** **candidate** **eats** **pizza** **with** **fork** **and** **knife****! ** 
 
 
 
 I breathed a sigh of relief. My conscious was clear. It was done. 
 
 
 As it turns out, so was I. I was fired that afternoon. 
 
 
 I walked out of that office with my head held high. There were a lot of things you could get away with. Crony capitalism, getting rich off the backs of the American public, even destroying civil liberties were one thing. But no one, and I mean *no* *one* should ever be allowed to eat pizza with a fork and knife.
