Just use a different news client. You don't have to run OE for news. Any NNTP client would do (and there are a multitude better than OE).
Yeahbut I'm after proper integration, so I can forward from one to another, send a message to both a newsgroup and a person, etc, without cutting and pasting or otherwise switching from one application to another.
Example: someone moans about the council on a newsgroup, I forward the post via email to the relevant council officer, problem gets fixed, I get votes
