No, he indicates his familiarity with that specific story (unless the author was writing two stories on the same community within weeks of each other) and not j

No, he indicates his familiarity with that specific story (unless the author was writing two stories on the same community within weeks of each other) and not just the author. He was interview for that story and judged it likely to be positive. Therefore we have two people's opinion of the story, that both have partial information is irrelevant.