Journalists look for stories - it's the nature of their job. However, as a journalist myself, I can tell you there is no way a BBC news editor is going to broadcast anything based purely on the musings of PRRUNE contributors. Yes, if you have special responsibility for articles about aviation, you will keep an eye on forums such as this for possible 'leads'. If you see consistent speculation about something, you start to check it out. Failure to do so would be very unprofessional. But it would be even more unprofessional to write a story you could not stand over 100%, and the information contained within posts on this thread would have to be verified by other sources before it could be considered in any way reliable. This is why I say Jim Fitzpatrick must have received off the record information from a source with good knowledge of Aer Lingus's intentions.
Several years ago I picked up a suggestion on PPRUNE that passengers on a bmi charter from Palma to BFS had panicked and left their seats during the take-off roll when they mistook air conditioning misting for smoke from a fire somewhere on the aircraft. At rotation, they were making their way towards the cockpit door in a desperate attempt to alert the pilot to the perceived danger.
I put this to a bmi press officer who denied the incident had occurred. That could have been the end of the matter. However, I decided to give the CAA press office a try, just on the off chance.... They sent me full details of the incident. The guy at bmi had to concede defeat when I sent him a copy of the CAA statement. However, if I had not obtained independent verification of what happened, the story would not have appeared.