You would think that a reporter for a major metropolitan daily newspaper would know better than to lie to her readers in the lead of a story. You would think that the paper would put honesty above hype, and respect its readers enough to cut to the truth and not get sucked into a narcissist’s need to get himself in the headlines.

That’s what you get for thinking — which apparently is not what Lisa Petrillo or her editors were doing when she wrote the lead story for the San Diego Union Tribune’s North section last Friday.

Petrillo, who has covered North County colleges for some time, began the story, “New venue for Moore,” like this:

After being banned by the Cal State San Marcos president, Oscar-winning filmmaker Michael Moore will speak to students in North County after all.

For those who aren’t up to speed on the story, earlier this month Cal State President Karen Haynes cancelled an October speaking engagement with Moore because California law prohibits public universities from sponsoring partisan events that do not include speakers from both sides.

The university was picking up most of the $37,000 tab to bring Moore to the California Center for the Arts, Escondido, as part of Cal State’s “Arts and Lectures” series. The student government kicked in $6,500.

Haynes’ decision was immediately met with protest — from Michael Moore, from students and from faculty members — and it became the largest “free speech” issue to face the young university.

Moore was pissed because this was the second time the university had cancelled on him — the first time was last fall, when the event was postponed because the entire county basically shut down during the wildfires (note that Moore was so upset he refused to reschedule last year — apparenlty he is more important than the hundreds of San Diego families that lost their homes).

The faculty called it “an arbitrary use of executive privilege to silence a controversial speaker,” and wrote in a letter of protest : “Michael Moore is an important artist and public intellectual who raises central social and political questions for our time. Our university must support those, like Moore, who open discussion about whether our fundamental values — justice, reason, equality and democracy — remain active forces in our community …”

The students protested because, well, that’s what pampered students at a public university who don’t know anything do.

My problem with Petrillo’s story is that in it she lied to me. She lied to all of the readers in North County who rely (dear gawd) on the Union Tribune to give them the truth, to sift through all of the crap out there and get to the heart of the matter. Petrillo, though, got swept up in reactionary hype, and instead of doing her job as a journalist, she became Michael Moore’s publicity bitch.

Now, if you only listen to the students and the faculty, you would think Moore was banned. But that’s not true. Haynes did not say that Moore could not speak to Cal State students, and she did not bar him from coming on campus. Haynes only said the university could not use state funds to pay for the speech. And she’s right.

The faculty wants us all to believe that Moore is not a partisan, that he is “just an artist” — yeah, just an artist who says in his own press bio that part of his daily duties include “removing George W. Bush from the White House” and launched his nationwide campus tour encouraging everyone to “take just a few minutes to evict the tenant (of the White House) who is currently wrecking the place” so that “America can be saved.” Sure, he’s not a partisan.

Almost immediately following Haynes announcement, the Associated Students raised $41,000 to pay for Moore’s speech without even soliciting donations. Apparently, AS realized Moore was not banned from campus.

But Moore refused to come — he said the university had to pay for his visit and threatened to sue the school for breaking the contract (it’s still unclear whether a contract actually existed).

This is important — MOORE REFUSED TO COME — Haynes did not say he was banned from campus. That was a lie.

Moore, like he did when Disney didn’t distribute his film (no, not “Canadian Bacon“), whined like a baby and cried censorship (frankly, if Moore was really about getting his message out and igniting student involvement in the political process, he should have opted to come for free when the college said it couldn’t legally pay for the event).

Moore is coming on Oct. 12 to speak to Cal State students at the Del Mar Fairgrounds (where else would Cal State hold a campus gathering?). It’s not clear what caused him to change his mind.

I often rant about the state of news. It sucks. I love my profession, but I hate the hack reporters who give the rest of us a bad name — especially the ones who blatantly lie to their readers.

Most of the coverage of the Cal State / Moore fiasco has been bad. Most paint it in the “free speech” context, which is not where this story lies. The only free speech issue at hand has to do with the California law that doesn’t allow such events to be paid for by the state — if you want to debate that, fine — the law’s stupid.

And don’t even get me started on the coverage in the student press.

But Petrillo’s story is especially egregious, and had she been working for me, she’d be out of a job.

Her story is one of the reasons that people no longer trust journalists — and I don’t blame them. When someone lies to you, you stop believing them, ‘nuf said. It’s yet another sign of the epidemic of journalistic lies, mistruths and plagiarism, and the only way we can cure the profession of this disease, is to eradicate it.