It is true that Jim Hougan is a well-established investigative reporter, and also a good friend. He has a wealth of experience researching the world of spooks and spies, having written Secret Agenda: Watergate, Deep Throat, and the CIA<\/i>; Spooks: The Haunting of America: The Private Use of Secret Agents<\/i>; and Kingdom Come<\/i>, a novel about a CIA bureaucrat. He also wrote and produced a documentary on Jonestown for the Arts and Entertainment Channel on the twentieth anniversary of Jonestown. No wonder he takes umbrage at being lumped together with \u201cprofessional conspiracists.\u201d That\u2019s a legitimate complaint.<\/p>\n
In my article, \u201cReconstructing Reality: Conspiracy Theories About Jonestown\u201d in Journal of Popular Culture<\/i> 36, no. 2 (Fall 2002) \u2013 available online<\/a> \u2013 I described Mr. Hougan\u2019s article in Lobster<\/i> as falling within the genre of conspiracy literature. I stand by that statement, and I believe other readers of the article would agree. Indeed, given Lobster\u2019s<\/i> self-description as \u201cthe Journal of Parapolitics that includes International Intelligence, Conspiracy Theories and Government Abuse,\u201d I believe the editors published Mr. Hougan\u2019s piece because of its conspiracy themes.<\/p>\n However, there is a difference between an article written by a professional conspiracist, and an article with a conspiracy theme written by an investigative reporter. I recognize the importance of making that distinction, and I am happy to do so.<\/p>\n \u2013 Rebecca Moore<\/em><\/p>\n (Rebecca Moore is the author and co-editor of numerous books and articles about Peoples Temple and Jonestown. A professor in Religious Studies at San Diego State University, she also serves as co-general editor of <\/em>Nova Religio: The Journal of New and Emergent Religions, together with Catherine Wessinger. She can be reached at remoore@sdsu.edu<\/a>.)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Array<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"parent":34804,"menu_order":2,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-16573","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/16573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16573"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/16573\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78690,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/16573\/revisions\/78690"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/34804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}