A reporter poses the question: "Everyone knows politicians lie. Why don’t reporters say so?"
He then proposes an answer: "For fear of alienating officials who might provide the, uhhh, raw material for their next story."
In between he explains that "lying" means knowingly telling an untruth. Of course, it can be particularly tricky to prove the "knowingly" part. What did the politician know, and when did he know it?
To say what is untrue,
is an easy thing to do,
but it's hard to decide
exactly when someone lied.