I wrote this person using my university affiliation as emeritus professor [and being straight up on my ND degree] to express my understanding that news reporters are allowed to attempt to get information leads by any route they can, short of illegality, harassment, or lack of social concern for the interviewee. I believe that such tactics are old-style investigative behaviors.
I also expressed my concern that some reporters, seen more frequently now in this fast-press world, do not actually do the investigation required. That investigation, if it is about anything but trivia, involves face-to-face interviewing with all responsible parties, a sideline inquiry as to the credibility of those sources, and a serious interaction with the responsible organizations in the issue [ex. police, independent investigatory boards, the university officials, etc.]. Without this whole constellation of input and work, any opinion upon a serious issue which is published from a news platform, is irresponsible. I ended up by saying that I hoped that he would be on the side of the news-reporting angels in his work, and would honor these standards of morality and trust.
Whether such "reminders" of a serious, almost constitutional, duty of the free press will have positive influence on this fellow, only time will tell. Hopefully he didn't even need the reminder, but I sent it anyway. Of course, there's the chance that he didn't read it either.
