Moreovber, I have no quarrel whatevber with Doug's conception of the journalist's work. Applied to a journalist at work, shag's paragraph which he quoted would indeed be total nonsense.
Moreover, I've never over the years objected to being asked questions by various local reporters (newspaper and radio) in Bloomington/Normal or in the hallway after I had testified (or rather refused to testify) before an Illinois Legislative committee. And some of those questions have been hostile -- but that's a reporters job - when he/she is operating as a reporter. And I've praised Doug _as a reporter_ (and behind his back as to his face). He is a good journalist.
But I can only ignore him or call him a slimeball if on this list he relates to me (or to any other poster) as a journalist to a subject.
That confusion may be behind most of the hostility between me and Doug over the last decade. If he will stop acting like a journalist on this list, he and I mightr get along quite well.
And non-journalists speaking to non-jouranlists do not (repeat not) ask free-floating questions, detached from any statements of their own position. (As shag argued.)
Carrol