I’m about to head out to Norwescon to start my liveblogging, but this seems to be popping up everywhere this morning: Did Malcolm Gladwell lie in the media about lying in the media?

I think this is kind of a tempest in a teacup, frankly. There’s a difference between telling a tall tale or embellishing a story and, say, creating a fictional character to write a memoir passed-off as true. If we start holding all writers to everything they say, all we’re going to be left with Dean Koontz. There are plenty of frameworks, of course, where lying is not acceptable: Newspapers should be held to telling the truth, as should magazines that deal in fact. But fact-checking Gladwell’s anecdotes seems a little above and beyond to me. He writes dopey little books about sociological tricks and sleight-of-hand: It’s not as if Slate is toppling a Murrow or anything, here.