Deception n. 1. The use of deceit. 2. The state or fact of being deceived. 3. A ruse.

Deceptive adj. Intended or tending to mislead or deceive.

Then, after planting that theme in readers' minds, they go right into the story about someone who was deceived or did a li'l deceiving. The approach is on par with "The year was 1981, Ronald Reagan was in the White House, Kim Carnes' Bette Davis Eyes topped the charts and a loaf of bread cost ..." intros. Tired cliches, the mark of hacks.

So imagine how dirty and used up I'm feeling today as I realize the only one way to start this week's column off is, yep, with a dictionary definition. So, let's hold our noses and get on with the bad journalism:

Exclusive adj. 1. Not shared with others ... 4. Complete: undivided.

This was the word that popped up on the screen one minute and 59 seconds into the lead story on Action News at 6 p.m. Monday. Each letter was white and capitalized, surrounded by a blue box in the upper left part of the frame. It referred to superguy/reporter Dann Cuellar, he of chameleonic diction, who had a "recent" sitdown with one Rick Mariano.

Mariano, as you may know from the City Paper that was in honor boxes when Channel 6's story aired, is a convicted ex-councilman who deeply regrets what he did, hopes some good can come out of his incarceration and feels as if there's much more of his story to tell. (This, even though, and not to toot my own horn — intentional cliche there, folks — there wasn't much that didn't make last week's 4,400-word story that one reader deemed a "novella.")

So, Channel 6 dramatically starts with Superguy discussing how Mariano will spend the next six-and-a-half years in Fort Dix, N.J. This nugget qualifies as news, since not even Mariano knew where he was going until Monday. Then, it cuts to tape of Mariano chatting Superguy up. Next came the voiceover: "In his only television interview after his conviction, Mariano told me of his deep remorse for his sins as a councilman and the heavy price he was set to pay." Eighteen seconds later, the piece was over and I surpassed dumb for a minute; I was dumbfounded.

After last week's story came out, I got calls from two local TV stations hoping to score Mariano interviews. Both callers —an on-air reporter and a behind-the-scenes producer — hoped to do a follow-up story. I relayed those requests to Mariano two days before he went all inmate, but he passed. So, let's concede that Superguy's quote about this being Mariano's "only television interview" holds true.

Why then am I riled up enough to resort to a hack lede? Because Superguy's interview with Mariano was neither "complete" nor "undivided" and the information had already been "shared with others," with "others" defined as n. anybody who read last week's City Paper cover story.

Calling a regurgitative follow-up interview "EXCLUSIVE" is nothing short of wannabe-Geraldo-style deception. Mariano had already been interviewed; that it was done in a different medium says nothing about exclusivity. The media is the media is the media; if the story's been done on one, it's not exclusive when it trickles down to others.

Of course, this is no new phenomenon: Many television reporters have long subsisted on the scraps other media provide, but still deeming their work original. Since newspapers, like us, consider it a matter of pride to give proper credit where it's due, I decided to ring Channel 6 to find out "what characteristics a story must have to rise to the 'exclusive' level." Spokeswoman Caroline Welch responded that calling it a "television interview" in the script made up for the misleading on-screen graphic. Semantically, she may be right but not ethically, so I called a couple legitmate news organizations.

When asked what it'd take to label a story exclusive, Daily News Editor Michael Days laughed before saying, "A scoop is a scoop. Nobody else has reported it before."

Inquirer Editor Amanda Bennett said that while the paper doesn't slap "EXCLUSIVE" tags on its stories, they certainly point out, in the text, that their reporters staked first claim. (In which cases, CP gives them credit in follow-ups. We're not thieves, after all.)

"Oh, the rip-and-read has been going on for 30 years," said Bennett. Television reporters, "show up at a press conference clutching your clips, reinterviewing everybody you already interviewed. ... It's a real issue. No matter what people say about getting news from other media, print still has the news-creation assets and everybody else is using our assets."

Damn right, Amanda. While I've taken more than my fair share of shots at your paper, we both know the press needs to reconnect with consumers, a connection that can only be built on a foundation of trust (not to mention utility). Luckily, I think we've discovered a place to start:

Next time you air a story that's already been told, Superguy, quash the braggadocio until you actually have a scoop, which you surely know is defined as:

n. an exclusive news story.

(hickey@citypaper.net)