DISCLAIMER:

If you’re a source and I want to interview you or someone else you work with, there’s almost no chance (0.00%) that the story I’m writing will be an adversarial one. I’ve done some work in this vein, but what I do today isn’t it. The nature of my recent freelance contracts isn’t to inflame the public’s sense of right and wrong. Believe me: if it becomes that, you’ll know it, because I’ll tell you, and I’ll ask you what you think about it.

I frequently discuss so-called “adversarial journalism” on my site simply because I have a high regard for it. I believe it has the potential to nudge democracy in the right direction. And because it’s worth discussing. What are blogs for if not discussing?

I felt compelled to make the above disclaimer because a source recently returned my call to say, more or less, that they weren’t going to talk to me. They had read some of my website and—the implication was—it didn’t sit well with them. (I wonder why they called me back at all.)

I happen to agree with one of their sentiments: they’re from such a cool organization that they don’t need my promotion. Maybe they thought the risk of my doing an incendiary story (again, in reality, 0.0%) was just too high. But it’s their loss. I wasn’t lying when I said I was going to focus on their innovation and that alone.

What’s the moral here? Quick-hit interviews do not investigative reporting make, and I *will not* write incendiary things unless I have solid basis for it.