As a Fifer I have a number of good contacts on the base and immediately met one of them who confirmed that the eng was indeed in the back and that the rumour doing the rounds was that he may have been responsible for the crash.
But of
course there would be a rumour going around the base speculating that the rear-seater might have pulled the handle. Any wannabe spotter who heard that there was a groundie in the back would know about Command Eject and ask themselves that, so naturally the boys and girls who make the things fly would wonder it too. That doesn't give the story any more credibility.
I'm sure that any hardcore "ufologist" would wonder whether the aircraft hit some extraterrestral vessel, and any paranoid Texan hermit living half-way up a mountain would wonder whether the goddamn Russkies shot it down with some secret new frickin' "laser". If they had any friends they might even have started a rumour about it. At the end of the day, your "contact" at Leuchars knows no more than the aforementioned freaks, so why give his/her ponderings the credibility (in the eyes of your readership, at least) of column inches? You know the answer is that you wanted a story, so you made one up out of the idle speculation of RAF tradesmen who know as many facts as you do.
I'm all for freedom of the press, and investigative journalism. Journalists
should pry. They
should try and expose cover-ups and reveal the truth. How else would BEagle know that our Beloved Leader is actually a Toothless Poodle who lied to Parliament and his country? Without the press we might all be merrily believing that Iraq was 45 minutes away from nuking us all when we went in. But quality investigative journalists don't run articles based on word-of-mouth from people who cannot be in a position to know the facts. Only sensationalist tabloid journalists out to entertain do that.
I trust my contact implicitly and as a result the story had become more than just a “random nutter phone-in” job that we sometimes have to deal with.
I don't doubt that your contact is very honest and reliable, but if he/she relates a rumour to you it is precisely that: a rumour. That doesn't mean it can't be true, but it doesn't mean you've "discovered" anything either. Until you either get a PRO to officially confirm or deny it (and if they can't do either it might just be that they simply don't know, and are being as honest as they can with you), or you dig around to the point where you get to interview the only person who definitely knows what happened (the pilot), you're either making stuff up, or printing stuff someone else made up.
Now relax, be happy and enjoy the fact that you get paid to make sensational stories up as long as there are people daft enough to buy your paper. Instead of coming on here and trying to justify yourself, buy yourself a beer and leave the proper journalism to the big boys.
Dave (not a made-up-name)