Just say no

Full disclosure: I'm guilty.

I make that admission because as I write this blog entry, I do so with full knowledge that I am as complicit as my fellow journalists in accepting an e-mail response in place of a face-to-face or telephone interview.

Accordingly, these days readers are every bit as likely to read "wrote in an e-mail response" as they are to see "said" in a story. (One means we didn't get to talk to whomever we were trying to get on the record; the other means we did our job as a reporters and had a conversation with the point person.)

It didn't use to be that way. For most of us reporters, when we wanted to talk to the mayor or a state senator or even a congressional representative, we just picked up the phone and called.

It might take a call or two or more. An interview time might have been scheduled.

But in the end, if I wanted to speak with - let's say - Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nevada, I ended up talking to Harry Reid. Not his public information officer. And, I sure as heck didn't converse with him through e-mails or text messages.

(By the way, Reid was one of my first interviews as a journalist and I interviewed him several times afterward while working for another Gannett newspaper in Nevada. I always was able to talk with him personally no matter the issue)

Interestingly, that's no longer the case - at least not here in Louisiana. For example, while working on a recent story about local elected officials spending nearly $100,000 to attend Washington Mardi Gras, I attempted to reach Louisiana's congressional delegation. Surely, I reasoned, the annual event's main and most vocal supporters would want to comment on the use of taxpayer funds to party in the nation's capital.

Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-Louisiana

I called. I e-mailed. I listened to their public information officers offer lame excuses as to why Sen. Mary Landrieu, Sen. David Vitter and Rep. John Fleming couldn't come to the phone.

In the end, I accepted their less than adequate e-mail responses that did not address the issue. I put those empty words in my story.

Readers got less than they should have and that's my fault.

I shouldn't have tolerated - much less used - the canned responses they offered. I should have demanded an interview with Landreiu, Vitter and Fleming. Seriously, folks, they're not that busy and they're not that important.

They work for me and you and the rest of the citizens of this state. We pay the bills. They owe us.

Sen. David Vitter, R-Louisiana

There absolutely is no reason why they can't take your or my calls. Period.

(Incidentally, our congregational delegation aren't the only officials who use this approach. Our local bureaucrats, apparently, also went to the same class on how to duck the press)

I realize that technology has something to do with the situation. It's fast and easy to rely on e-mails or texts to get or release information. But in accepting that automated routine we, as journalists, are degrading the content and value of our stories.

There is no acceptable substitution for an in-person candid interview. It's only in that situation we learn what really is happening, what a person really is thinking or how they really respond to the issues.

So, are you listening Sen. Landrieu, Sen. Vitter and Rep. Fleming? I'm going to say no to e-mail interviews or responses to my questions.

If I can't get you or any other government/elected official on the phone or in the the office for an interview, then your or their viewpoint or comments won't be in my story. I'll tell readers why you aren't represented - that you wouldn't agree to a phone or face-to-face interview.

Readers can decide if that translates to how much they rate with you.