: Whether you or anyone who received the email chooses to answer the email or not, it is in Tolkien fandom's best interests for us to represent ourselves as civilly and maturely as possible when addressing condescending questions. Whether the reporter felt contempt for us or was just speaking from ignorance, any response he gets is an opportunity to confirm his beliefs or to disspell them.

I was civil, but condescending and, I hope, infuriating. I believe that he wrote from ignorance, he seems like the archetypical journalist that we encounter on the viking scene; a second grade journalist on a second grade job where he has not bothered to do his research and cares little about our replies as he already has his preconcieved opinion formed and his own agenda that he wishes to fill in. Remember that even good journalists has a target group for whom they write and will fit anything into that groups preconcieved frames to please them.
Neithan, despising most journalists
BTW, journalists are now beginning to (re)write history in the same shallow manner that they write their articles, may --- no that is a flame.