All too often we see reporters miss the real questions or lob easy ones at the Powers That Be. This isn’t enough to make me paranoid, as generally, people do good. But one particular line in this Time article about missing boy Danny Barter really got me interested. The line in question is this:

Their hope has been bolstered by investigators with the FBI and the Baldwin County Sheriff’s Office, which reopened the case last year after hearing of a recent conversation.

“A lead was sparked when someone was sitting in a public area talking about what happened,” FBI spokeswoman Joyce Riggs wrote in an e-mail to the media.

Who was talking? What role did they play? Are they an informant? Random speculation by random strangers caused a lead? Or are the people having the conversation now suspects? This is a serious, serious issue. Some random public conversation sparks a lead? How did the FBI get the conversation?