Journalist researching article info on t-girl admirers

[smc]

I have worked as a professional journalist at various points in my career, both in the United States and France, and it is by virtue of having had that experience that I second many of CreativeMind's points. My first step was to Google Peter Berton / journalist, and I came up empty. However, assuming that Peter Berton is a "legitimate" journalist (and in these days of IndyMedia and other social media "journalism" it is becoming increasingly difficult to stick by the old definition of legitimate in this context), his approach to gathering information here is unconventional enough to warrant strong skepticism. Further, the answers to the questions he asks are of the sort that, in some circumstances, could have a profoundly deleterious effect should the identities of those who answer be uncovered.

One final thought: without a more journalistically acceptable approach to identifying, aggregating, and measuring the sources, Peter Berton's article itself would be suspect as actual journalism. I suspect it would come across more like a picaresque story of adventure through whatever answers are most [fill in the blank] to him as a reader rather than as a writer.