A lot of readers love it when the tables get turned on journalists. When they become the story. When they have to answer those potentially gotcha questions they are so used to asking.
Maybe an empathy fix would be helpful. See what it’s like in the other guy’s shoes.
To be sure, some handle it better than others. To wit: The Tampa Tribune was running down a story last week about the St. Petersburg Times letting go some veteran journalists as a cost-cutting measure. (The Trib itself, of course, is no stranger to such scenarios borne of declining revenues.)
But the Trib couldn’t get any exact numbers, because the Times wasn’t being particularly cooperative about confirming, well, less-than-positive news to the competition. Nor did the Times run its own story on the matter. The Trib reporter had to make do–but did work in a journalistic code phrase: “Times executives did not return the Tribune’s calls…”
In the newspaper biz that’s tantamount to saying, “They’re afraid to talk, so it must be true.” It at least tells the reader they tried to get the scoop, but the other side didn’t think it was any of the public’s business.