How misunderstood is direct messaging?

With the British coalition Energy Secretary pulling a non-sexual* Anthony Weiner and tweeting something he wanted to direct message, this question is relevant. It is extremely ironic that the Telegraph itself misunderstands how Twitter direct messaging (in a paragraph that's sure to be pulled):

It was not clear who the intended recipient was, although he would have only been able to send a Direct Message to one of the 87 people he follows, who include about 30 national journalists and several fellow MPs. 

No, that's not the way it works. You can only send direct messages to people who follow you. Whether you follow them is irrelevant. I've received DMs from people who never followed me, but I of course followed them. It makes sense when you look at following as a granting of trust, and you can only send people DMs if they trust you.

*He wanted to rubbish some unknown person but to do it from the shadows. This proves once again that Chris Huhne is a backbiting git.

Update: Sure enough, the paragraph has been corrected. It now reads:

It was not clear who the intended recipient was: he would have been able to send a Direct Message to any of his 7,616 followers.