Sources’ Silence Speaks Volumes--but What Does It Say?

There are people out there who won’t talk to me. Not legions, just a few. These folks aren’t threatening and haven’t used abusive language. What they say is, “Sorry, I’d rather not talk” or “I have no comment.” All very polite and civilized.

But the sting is sharp nonetheless. Mostly, it’s because I can’t figure out why I’m being given the cold shoulder. I’m perplexed, and I’m beginning to take it personally.

It started out innocently enough. It was a simple story of a feud--two Costa Mesa neighbors fighting like cats and dogs over a disputed 3-foot right of way. They’d thrown everything at each other, including attorneys.

It wasn’t major news, but it did indicate a disturbing phenomenon of increasing nastiness among neighbors and the use of the courts to pursue these personal vendettas.

In the course of reporting the story, I had occasion to examine the court records of the lawsuits and countersuits the neighbors had filed. Very meaty. Anyone in search of half a day’s entertainment could do worse than a trip to the local courthouse to check out civil suits.

My guys had accused each other of harassment, spying, physical assault, attacking each other’s pets and worse. A reporter’s dream. I called to get comments from the two parties. One neighbor was quite cooperative. The other started out agreeable but then grew unaccountably testy.

Whatever it was, I could sense the level of rapport deteriorating after I mentioned the charge that he’d poisoned his neighbor’s trees.

“I’m not going to talk to you anymore,” he said. Click.

He was the first to clam up. I knew he meant it because when I tried to contact him weeks later for another, related story, I got the same treatment.

But I didn’t worry. There are a lot of people out there.

It happened again several months later, though, this time with a local city official.

He’d become a controversial figure in the community while remaining pretty forthright--even bragging about his thick skin--but then found himself up for reelection. I’d written several stories about the race, citing comments both critical of and favorable to the candidate.

Then I called him on some other matter and got this: “I’m not going to talk to you because you haven’t treated me fairly. From now on, I’ll speak to your colleague but not you.” Or something like that.

About midway through his little speech, I began to fume. I can’t remember how the conversation ended. It’s not unusual for politicians to gripe about unfair reporting--even when they know they’ve been treated as fairly as anybody else.

But to stifle themselves because of some imagined slight is unusual. And to speak to a colleague--who worked on the very same stories that I did--but not me? That didn’t make sense.

When he lost the election, I could only think . . . well, that it was somehow appropriate.

This second instance of unsociability did not prepare me, however, for the UC Irvine history professor. Our little chat was akin to walking through Alice’s looking glass.

I was working on a story about how hard it is for Orange County’s shrinking working class to make ends meet. Pretty heady, profound stuff, I think. Just the sort of thing professors like to tackle.

Academic types are usually good marks for reporters. They love a chance to dispense their wisdom in a forum other than musty research journals.

So I called one who supposedly had some expertise in the field. Only he had a problem, or rather I had a problem. Make that the Los Angeles Times had a problem.

It seems he’d recently co-edited a book of which he was quite proud but which The Times’ book editors had not seen fit to review, despite the tome being brought to their attention many times by our professor.

I spent five minutes suffering his wrath, the upshot of which was that he wasn’t going to talk to me. Ever. At least not until his book had been reviewed.

I tried to argue: Am I to suffer the consequences when a potential source gets his Times thrown into the bushes instead of onto the porch, or writes a book that our very knowledgeable book editors choose not to open? But it was a lame excuse to him.

As far as I know, the book still hasn’t been reviewed, so I haven’t tried calling him back.

There have been a few other subjects who have stopped talking to me since that first occasion. I still can’t figure it out. Can’t fathom what I did to them that I hadn’t done to anyone else. The whole thing has definitely got me shook.

It’s on its way to becoming a trend, and I may run out of people.