I started this in response to a comment on The Weblog:

Adam K - I only saw "Shattered Glass", so I'm far from an expert on Stephen Glass. I did take away from the film that it is harder and harder for journalism to stay "serious". Our media has become so sensationalized that Stephen Glass could provide TNR with stories full of lies until one person decided to research an article.

Even with this aspect of our culture, though, I find your last line confusing. If you want to simplify it like that, so that fiction is "lies", and non-fiction "truth", I think a large part of the reading population would disagree. I guess I can only speak for myself though. I choose to read fiction because the world becomes too much. Because I am surrounded by liars and cheats in the world (well, my political spectrum anyway), I prefer to retreat to a world of fiction. I don't find such escape in non-fiction. Non-fiction does interest me, but the stuff I choose to read tends to get me riled up. Of course, some fiction does that for me too.

I don't think you should be so quick to dismiss fiction as passe because it is "lies". I have found truths in certain works of fiction that never would have struck me in non-fiction.