But I was as clear as I could possibly be that what is at issue here would be, for example, the particular events that the reporters wrote about and questions such as -- simple questions, did they attend the meeting, did they hear them say the comments, did they write the story immediately after, did they take notes at the time of the meeting.

Based on the paragraph above can we conclude that "The question "did they attend the meeting" is a simple question"?
Yes