In message <200004050511.e355BQp31490@black-ice.cc.vt.edu>, Valdis.Kletnieks@vt .edu writes:

On Tue, 04 Apr 2000 21:16:55 PDT, Ehud Gavron said:

...

Your list of people below are already emailing me to say "no no, we just gave him info"

You're not journalist.

(I'm assuming here that Gordon starts off with "Hi, I'm Gordon Cook, with the Cook Report", and not social-engineering with false names etc ;)

Umm.. given the list of names for 1998 through 2000, and the fact that I *know* that at least some of them were aware of what Gordon writes when they gave him info, I think it's safe to conclude that at least a good fraction of Gordon's listed sources were giving him information fully aware of where it was going to end up. If you tell somebody info knowing it's going into a well-publicized newsletter, you're talking to a journalist. It may not be Tom Brokaw, but it's a journalist. ;)

Absolutely. As one of the people Gordon interviewed, there was and is no doubt in my mind that he's a journalist. In fact, I know of no reasonable definition of the term that would exclude him -- he gathers information and publishes it. Yes, Gordon expresses opinions -- but the set "columnist" is a subset of the set "journalist". Yes, I (and many others on this list) often disagree with his viewpoint. So what? --Steve Bellovin