The death of journalism?

U.S. Sen. Harry Reid says journalism is evaporating.

And sadly, he’s got some evidence to back him up.

Reid points to a story that got a lot of play, mostly in right-wing media circles, that alleged his New Year’s Day injuries were the result of a fistfight with his brother, Larry. (Reid, who was hospitalized for treatment, says he was hurt when an exercise band he was using snapped, sending him flying into a cabinet.)

The story began on right-wing blogs, blew up on Rush Limbaugh’s agenda-setting radio show and flourished on social media. It even got a mention in an April 19 story in the Review-Journal that cataloged some alternative explanations for Reid’s injury.

But then, a Henderson man named Larry Pfeifer admitted to the Las Vegas Sun that he’d made the whole thing up, in order to point out how easy it would be to deceive conservative media where hatred of Reid might overcome journalistic standards.

Mission accomplished.

But instead of anger at being the subject of a salacious rumor, Reid was smiling. “What this guy proved to me is that journalism doesn’t exist,” Reid said. “I wish I’d meet this guy and pat him on the back.”

In a perverted sort of way, that makes sense: Reid certainly benefited from the media’s slow evaporation during the 2012 campaign, when he alleged (based on information that he said he’d obtained from a source) that Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney hadn’t paid taxes for 10 years. Reid demanded that Romney disprove the allegation by releasing his tax returns.

That story got national play for weeks, harming Romney’s campaign, much to Reid’s delight. Confronted recently about that allegation by CNN’s Dana Bash, Reid was unapologetic, and dismissed the controversy by saying, “He [Romney] didn’t win, did he?”

Message: So long as an untruth serves a useful purpose (the defeat of a candidate, the embarrassment of media enemies), it’s justified.

Back in 2012, I criticized Reid for the Romney allegation, noting that as a longtime attorney, Reid should have known better than to make an unsupported allegation and demand that the accused prove his innocence. That is, to coin a phrase, downright un-American. But even that criticism served Reid’s purpose, since it necessarily repeated his central allegation.

For the same reason, I was highly skeptical of the Reid-beaten-by-brother story, and paid it almost no attention. And while right-wingers might interpret this as bias in favor of Reid, their passion rests on their assumption that Reid must be guilty of something, whether it be corruption, voter fraud, covering up the real source of his painful injuries, or all of the above. If only the media would investigate, they say, we’d know the truth!

But asked for proof of wrongdoing, most of those critics eventually admit they have none, which, curiously, makes them more like the man they hate than they’d care to admit.

There are plenty of reasons we find ourselves in this tangled web of lies and deceit: The pressure on journalists to be first with a story in an era where scoops are measured in seconds on Twitter; the pressure to write about certain stories that are being talked about in right-wing circles, even if those stories rely more on disdain for the subject than actual evidence; the permanent campaign cycle that rests on story lines and memes and framing, more than addressing actual issues or solving real-world problems; the inability of the press to ignore a story promulgated by a high-ranking government figure, even if that person is telling it strictly to win a political advantage.

But the truth still matters. Mitt Romney did pay his taxes. Larry Reid didn’t assault his brother. And while partisans may not care about those facts, the people who practice journalism must, or what’s left of our profession really will evaporate.

Steve Sebelius is a Las Vegas Review-Journal political columnist who blogs at SlashPolitics.com. Follow him on Twitter (@SteveSebelius) or reach him at 702-387-5276 or ssebelius@reviewjournal.com.