The latest crisis at The Voice comes in the wake of the scandal that shook the American media . . .

porky-pie merchant James Frey and his made-up 'memoir', A Million Little Pieces. As a result of Frey's lies, the American press is now being held up to a level of scrutiny hitherto believed unimaginable; you might have thought that things would change after New York Times' reporter Jayson Blair was caught fictionalising news stories back in 2003, but here's the thing . . .

Blair didn't piss off Oprah. James Frey did.

Now, if you make up stuff, you will be found out . . . as Village Voice reporter Nick Sylvester discovered when he published a seemingly innocuous Voice cover story exploring recent developments on Manhattan's dating scene.

Twenty-two-yearold newbie Sylvester suggested that not only were would-be lotharios using author Neil Strauss's debauched memoir The Game (detailing Strauss's transformation from geek to love god) as their pick-up bible, the laydees were smart to The Game, too, reading Strauss themselves so as to outplay the players.

So far, so yawnf Except it transpires that some of Sylvester's vividly detailed encounters never actually happened. Oh, and an editor at the Village Voice ripped off the idea in the first place, as pitched to him by a Manhattan blogger, who . . . rather understandably . . .

cried foul. Asscovering time:

Sylvester, a promising up-and-comer who got a little careless with his first big cover story, gets suspended from The Village Voice, but not before fainting mid-bollocking in the editor's office.

Thank the heavens that Irish journalists, whose integrity is, as we all know, above reproach, would never tell a lie. All right, I admit it, I write this column from a flat in Phibsboro. Happy now?