ABC fakes us out about naming names.

Were you, like me duped into watching "20/20" last night to hear what names they'd name based on the big list forked over to them by Deborah Jeane Palfrey, who's accused of running a prostitution ring in Washington?

“Our decision at the end was not to name any names,” said Brian Ross, the news correspondent who presented the segment. Mr. Ross said that the network went with a “conservative approach,” and that “based on our reporting it turned out not to be as newsworthy as we thought in terms of the names.”

At least they're being honest -- it seems -- in not pretending they'd belatedly discovered some ethical compunction about it.

ABC had reported on its Web site on Monday that the list included a Bush administration economist along with senior military officials and lobbyists, among others.

The administration economist turned out to be a mid-level employee at the Office of Thrift Supervision who was not worth naming, ABC officials said. But the man’s case, network officials said, demonstrated that men sometimes exaggerate their importance to the women they pay for company.

And networks sometimes exaggerate the importance of their upcoming news shows to the viewers they sell to advertisers.