Yup. And a huge number of people quoted in NYT articles are immediate friends or one degree away in the reporter's social network. And there's a whole email li

Yup. And a huge number of people quoted in NYT articles are immediate friends or one degree away in the reporter's social network. And there's a whole email list ("Help a Reporter Out") where PR pros find "experts" to happily mouth quotes on demand for reporters (e.g. "Seeking Professor of Media Studies to comment on violent video games phenomenon"). The idea is that helping a grateful reporter out of a deadline jam in this way will then get your client a good story. In general, the story behind a story is usually more interesting than the story.