His words were "I'm hearing that" for the Ranson story, "my sources say" for the 14 councilers story and neither of those are very different to this story where he says "I understand that"
Les Reid did receive alot of praise and why would he not of done, he actually did some investigative journalism and he provided information we didn't have, I don't think any of the local journalism has been great but he did many praiseworthy things and so has Simon. I can not understand the attitude that you must only ever have one opinion about a certain person and their actions, this is an idiotic viewpoint that leads to idiotic after idiotic post, when you do well you get praised, when you throw your toys out of the pram, or do a poor job of interviewing someone, or you sing your own praises to sickening levels you get criticised. This is the reasonable viewpoint. This is how you reasonably dish out praise or criticism. There is no irony and no hypocrisy on criticising someone you have praised in the past and none in losing respect for someone you respected
Your final comment is nonsense