Just a thought....

[vanillafluffy]

Ever time I see a news article where they say, "Calls to Whoever were not immediately returned", I always imagine some reporter sitting next to the phone with a stopwatch, going, "Hey, it's been two minutes! They haven't immediately returned my call, I'm gonna write it like they're guilty! Woohoo!" They post their story 90 seconds later, and within five minutes, Whoever is on the phone with the facts.

Ooops, your bad---you should have called immediately---we don't care if you were taking a leak, stuck in traffic, donating a kidney to your twin. The news waits for no one!

Comments

[baileytc.livejournal.com]

Ex-journalist here...

The reporter is usually working on the story for several hours with a hard-and-fast deadline. If the story is about events revolving around a specific person--say, Karl Rove's involvement in the firing of U.S. attorneys--then the reporter knows he really needs to get a comment from Rove or someone who's on his staff or represents him (publicist, attorney, etc.). So one of the first things the reporter does is call Rove's office. He leaves a message saying he's on deadline and needs to hear back by x time, and continues writing his story with whatever other info is available.

In a case like this, Rove has a whole staff of people available around the clock whose job it is to call back reporters and say whatever it is Rove wants them to say. If they don't call the reporter back by the specified time, it usually means Rove didn't want to say anything to the press, not that he and everyone on his staff had run to the bathroom or to lunch or whatever.

I'm not saying that no reporter has ever given someone an unreasonably short amount of time to return a call. But in most cases, the reporter leaves enough time for a public figure to return the call if said figure wants to. The reporter WANTS that statement because it makes the article better. The "didn't immediately return a call" line is what you paste in when you've got two minutes left till deadline and your phone hasn't rung.

[vanillafluffy.livejournal.com]

No offense meant. It's just that lately, that seems to pop up in every other story I read.

Maybe I have an unreasonably paranoid, suspicious disposition---if so, it's job-related. My management would turn Pollyanna into a shrew.