How to steal a masterpiece: Advice from the world’s greatest art thief

Journalism is hyper competitive, but the reality is proper reporting is an often boring, greulling grind. The remarkable, career-defining stories are so rare most could never dream to break them. Sources almost never provide coherent quotes, and facts sometimes contradict each other. It's an extremely unfulfilling pursuit most of the time.

So it's not too difficult to understand why some reporters might embellish a quote or something small, trying to better illustrate a larger narrative, or perhaps make their piece more appealing to their audience or their colleagues.

Once that line is crossed, they can soon find themselves inventing entire people or scenarios. History is littered with examples, but the reality is we probably only know of the most prominent cases, i.e. those who were caught.

I look at it the same as steroids in professional athletes or white collar crime. Those in the lower echelons are constantly looking for a way to climb the ranks of esteem and further their careers, but the tangible opportunities to make their mark don't often materialize.

In journalism school, I think most programs have at least one ethics course effectively dedicated to studying rather famous instances of journalists disgraced for one reason of another, most often fabrication.

Huge cultural strides have been taken since the days of yellow journalism and so facts are usually vetted by a small team. I think it's usually a matter of one small untruth spawning a network of supporting lies. The coverup is often worse than the crime, as it were.

In a role and industry where credibility is the only currency, it's extremely serious to make any factual error, even mistakenly.

I left the industry more than a decade ago, but can offer the following real-life annecdote. I was almost fired for mistaking one mountain for another on one of my first pieces. It was a weeks-long ordeal of meetings, "trainings," and reprimands both official and casual, and that was a dumb mistake my editor made and I mindlessly agreed with, not even something I introduced surreptitiously, or even with any intent.

The Times != The New York Times

The world is a big place and the rule of law we trust to just work in the West is certainly not the norm everywhere.