What "No Comment" Really Signals, A Subject's-Side View with Citations

How many times have you read an article and the reporter does a brilliant job of explaining one side of a story but when it comes to the other side, they fall flat, or simply say this instead, "We reached out to X and they did not provide a comment."

What does that line actually mean?

Between February 2022 and March 2026, my husband had hundreds of articles written about him in LA-based outlets, national business press, and trade publications covering federal proceedings; everything from The Los Angeles Times, to The Wall Street Journal. I’ve seen firsthand how and when reporters ask for comment. Sometimes a comment was provided, and sometimes it wasn't-- for several reasons.

This piece is written with three audiences in mind — readers, reporters, and the subjects of stories. A note to each before we begin:

• Readers of the News: Please don't ever assume "no comment" equates automatically to guilt. It often doesn't, and I'll explain why.

  
  

• Reporters: Please note that I am not coming for you on how you ask for comment, I am merely providing one woman/wife's experience and perception of the matter.

  
  

• Subjects of Stories: You know how this goes.

One thing I’ve noticed personally: when an article is generally positive, reporters tend to wait for a response and include it.

Now for the reality behind “no comment" in news articles. When a story is less flattering, it’s often written with a particular framing already in mind. One hundred percent of the time the "request for comment" reach out came via email. In those cases (again, just from my experience), the request can feel more like checking a box: We reached out. We sent the email. Done.

When you see “no comment” (or something similar), here are three possibilities to consider:

1. There is no response at all.

   
   

   The reporter will typically say something like "we reached out for comment, but received no response," or something along those lines. There could be several reasons for this. The request may never have been seen; it could have been buried in email or simply missed. In other cases, the reporter may have been working on a tight deadline, and the respondent didn’t have time to reply. And lastly, of course, there’s always the possibility that they chose not to respond.

   
   

   Most people assume the last explanation, but that’s not always accurate. Ethical guidelines emphasize that journalists should make a real effort to include all sides. The Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics under the Seek Truth & Report It section states that reporters should “diligently seek subjects of news coverage to allow them to respond to criticism or allegations of wrongdoing.” New York University’s Jay Rosen ("He Said, She Said Journalism: Lame Formula in the Land of the Active User," PressThink, April 12, 2009. http://archive.pressthink.org/2009/04/12/hesaid_shesaid.html) wrote that merely seeking comment from two sides risks creating “he said, she said journalism” or false equivalence. Rosen observed: 'He said, she said is not so much a truth-telling strategy as refuge-seeking behavior that fits well into newsroom production demands. "Taking a pass" on the tougher calls — like who's blowing more smoke — is economical.' The 'no comment' line, in many cases, is the same shortcut applied to a different problem: easier to write than to wait, easier to leave than to chase.

   
   

   Ideally, a reporter wants to include a comment to present a complete picture. However, in today’s “first and fast” news cycle, there isn’t always time to wait.

2. A response was given, but not used.

   
   

   There are situations where a response is provided, but the reporter chooses not to include it. For example, a reporter from Law360 reached out to us Friday afternoon, March 27, 2026 at 3p Pacific Time and received a thoughtful reply within 30 minutes, yet still wrote that the subject was “not immediately available for comment.”

   
   

   Why a response isn’t used isn’t always clear, but professional standards emphasize transparency in these decisions. The Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics Be Accountable and Transparent section advises journalists to “explain ethical choices and processes to audiences” and to “respond quickly to questions about accuracy, clarity and fairness.”

   
   

   In practice, that doesn’t always happen. The result is that a comment may exist, even a timely one, but never make it into the final story. As the Poynter Institute notes, “Deadlines are tight, pressure is high,” and too often stories default to a simple “no comment” without additional context.

   
   

   Erik Wemple, longtime media critic at The Washington Post, made the deadline-pressure point plainly in a July 2022 column about a Bloomberg story that gave Fox News exactly 18 minutes to respond before publication. Wemple wrote: 'In that hurry-up-and-publish environment, comment from all sides is a journalistic principle that succumbs to journalistic impatience.' He quoted Leonard Downie Jr., a former executive editor of The Washington Post: 'Eighteen minutes doesn't sound like fair to me even in this day and age.'" (Erik Wemple, "Is 18 minutes enough time for a subject to comment?" — The Washington Post, July 23, 2022. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/23/bloomberg-fox-news-retracted-story/)

3. An actual "No Comment"

   
   

   This is the scenario people often interpret as an admission of guilt, but that assumption can be misleading. Sometimes, the respondent hasn’t had time to fully understand the situation they’re being asked about. In other cases, especially during active litigation, offering any public statement could create legal risk. Even a well-crafted statement “may still cause all kinds of headaches in the litigation to come,” according to Robert E Shapiro, internationally renowned litigator. "The fact is that almost any kind of response is usually a mistake. Regardless of the sense of the rejoinder, any additional noise in a headline-grabbing lawsuit will just prolong the agony, the less said, the better." (Robert E. Shapiro, "Is Silence Golden?" Litigation (American Bar Association, Section of Litigation), Summer 2024. https://www.americanbar.org/groups/litigation/resources/litigation-journal/2024-summer/silence-golden/)

   
   

   Ethical guidance supports that caution. The Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics Minimize Harm section urges journalists to “balance the public’s need for information against potential harm or discomfort” and to recognize that “legal access to information differs from an ethical justification to publish.” In other words, silence can reflect strategy, uncertainty, or legal necessity and not wrongdoing.

To be fair there are cases where "no comment" is exactly what it looks like, a deliberate refusal to address legitimate questions or pubic concern. The point of the piece isn't to claim every silence is innocent, it's to argue that readers deserve enough context to know which kind of silence is be presented (truthfully), and reporters owe their audience that distinction.

Fernanda Camarena, a Poynter Institute faculty member who co-authored Poynter's 2024 'Shut Out' report on sources who refuse to engage with reporters, has called this dynamic out directly. 'Editors should push reporters to do more than merely hit up a source for a quick statement,' Camarena wrote. 'But airways, newspapers and websites these days are littered with some variation of the phrase, "We reached out to source name and they had no comment." Deadlines are tight, pressure is high. It's not easy. But we should be intentional with our source strategies.'"

Camarena's co-author, Poynter program-management director Mel Grau, has argued that the line itself isn't enough: 'News organizations should not only take the time to let their audience know that a source denied them access, but they should also include context beyond "no comment." How many times and on how many occasions? On the phone or via email?' Poynter's senior vice president Kelly McBride put the consequence even more bluntly in the same report: 'Just reporting the "no comment" is going to leave the consumer in a state of confusion.'" ( Fernanda Camarena, "'No comment': When it's time to make that the story," Poynter, January 3, 2025. https://www.poynter.org/ethics-trust/2025/what-to-do-no-comment-source-wont-talk/)

The next time you see one side of a story without a comment, consider that there may be more behind it than it appears, and that context doesn’t always make it into the final report. As Reuters journalism standards emphasize, reporting should “take no side, tell all sides,” and journalists have a “duty of fairness” to give subjects the opportunity to present their perspective," making it all the more important to understand what may be happening behind the scenes, even when it doesn’t make it into the final article.

A final note: this writer reached out for comment on May 6, 2026, to two journalists — Jessica Corso of Law360  at 11:40 a.m. and Matt Hamilton, formerly of LA Times at 12:08 p.m. — with a response deadline of 11:59 p.m. Pacific Time on May 7, 2026. The question posed was: “From your side of the desk, what’s one thing you’d want readers to understand about how ‘no comment’ or ‘did not respond’ decisions get made on deadline?” I fully understand that my own article will be marked down in ReporterLens for not including a quote from them, and it should be.

Jessica Wiederhorn is the Founder of The Media Integrity Project, an independent initiative dedicated to advancing transparency, accountability, and humanity in journalism. Through analytical tools, research, and dialogue, the project explores how reporting is created, interpreted, and experienced, with the goal of elevating the standards of public storytelling. For more information on the initiative, visit www.themediaintegrityproject.com.