BOZEMAN, MONT. – In 2001, Michael Finkel was at the top of his game. He had built a reputation for himself as an ultra- ambitious contract writer for The New York Times Magazine, a journalist with a gift for handling heavy stories with literary finesse. But by early 2002, Mr. Finkel's career was in tatters. He was discovered to have invented a source in a piece written for the Times. HIS STORY: Journalist Michael Finkel invented a boy in a story. Why did he do it? "It was all about self-aggrandizement," he says in a recent interview in his cramped...