“Unwitting reporters” doesn’t narrow it down much.
Neither does “willing to promote anything for a byline”.
by AARON KLEIN
…In their work, Isikoff and Corn relate Simpson and Fusion GPS set up a series of off-the-record briefings with reporters at the Tabard Inn in Washington, DC. At these briefings, Steele informed the individual reporters of the claims inside the dossier.
Isikoff and Corn write that Simpson had hoped the briefings would prompt reporters to call the FBI about the dossier charges so that the bureau would take the claims more seriously.
They write:
At this point, Simpson knew something that almost nobody else did: Steele had given his initial reports to the FBI and the Bureau was reviewing them. So he figured out a way to put Steele’s material to use. He would bring Steele to Washington and have him brief a small number of reporters. Then, he hoped, the reporters would tap their sources and sniff out what the FBI was doing with all of this. It might even prod the Bureau to take Steele’s reports more seriously.
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