The random selection of interviewees and the preparation of questionnaires represent, in a sense, add-ons in reporting methods to the interview. Acts of observation, the analysis of documents, and interviewing in journalism are intended to provide authoritative facts. They represent the operations of the principle of reporting. It is often necessary to check and crosscheck, to corroborate and double-corroborate in order to assert a fact with confidence. But in journalism, regardless of what some journalists might say or do, the principle requires that facts are authoritative.
Journalists can live with that.
That's a little harder to accept. Journalists who are proud of their craft are proud of their command of the language and endorse the point of view, inspired as much by George Orwell as by anyone, that they have an obligation to protect the language and guard it against its enemies. 36 John Carey is right.