Scott Mason immediately acclimated to the modus operandi of the news business and actually locked onto the collapse of Kaypro Computers and the odd founding family who rode serendipity until competence was required for survival. The antics of the Kay family earned Mason a respectable following in his articles and contributions as well as several libel and slander suits from the Kays. Trouble was, it's not against the law to print the truth or a third party speculations, as long as they're not malicious. Scott instinctively knew how to ride the fine edge between false accusations and impersonal objectivity. Cold Fusion, the brief prayer for immediate, cheap energy inde- pendence made headlines, but Scott Mason dug deep and found that some of the advocates of Cold Fusion had vested interests in palladium and iridium mining concerns. He also discovered how the experiments had been staged well enough to fool most experts. Scott had located one expert who wasn't fooled and could prove it. Scott Mason rode the crest of the Cold Fusion story for months before it became old news and the Hubble Telescope fiasco took its place. The fiasco of the Hubble Telescope was nothing new to Scott Mason's readers. He had published months before its launch that the mirrors were defective, but the government didn't heed the whistle blower's advice. The optical measurement computers which grind the mirrors of the telescope had a software program that was never tested before being used on the Hubble. The GSA had been tricked by the contractor's test results and Scott discov- ered the discrepencies. When Gene-Tech covered up the accidental release of mutated spores into the atmosphere from their genetic engineering labs, Scott Mason was the one reporter who had established enough of a reputation as both a fair reporter, and also one that understood the technology. Thanks to Mason's early diagnosis and the Times' responsible publishing, a potentially cataclysmic genetic disas- ter was averted. The software problems with Star Wars and Brilliant Pebbles, the payoffs that allowed defective X-Ray lasers to be shipped to the testing ground outside of Las Vegas - Scott Mason was there. He traced the Libyan chemical weapons plant back to West Germany which triggered the subsequent destruction of the plant. Scott's outlook was simple. "It's a matter of recognizing the possibilities and then the probabilities. Therefore, if some- thing is possible, someone, somewhere will do it. Guaranteed. Since someone's doing it, then it's only a matter of catching him in the act."