Everyone who has been in a position to be offered and accept bribes or payoffs has to come to grips with that issue.

For me, it was simple, and it rendered everything easy.

Would I want the world to know? If there were any issue of secrecy, then it's not OK.

Lunches were easy. If someone bought me a lunch, chances were the next one I'd buy. And if we had a "live" issue, it was always understood everyone would pay for their own lunch until it was over.

Anything past that I just wouldn't take. Demoted a person once out of a position where they could influence a decision who took more. The appearance of impartiality is as important as the reality.

Why didn't those journalists broadcast that they were being subsidized by the US government as well as their more public sponsors?

Wasn't OK. And perverting the free press in a democracy by the government should be a capital offence.

Arf