Why Oh Why Can't We Have a Better Press Corps? (ProPublica Edition)

The weird turn pro. Crusading journalists for open information--ProPublica--go off the record and clams up when questioned about its Goldman Sachs story.

Felix Salmon:

How Banks Need to Mollify the Public Sector: I just got off the phone with ProPublica's Dick Tofel; we talked quite a bit about the Goldman Sachs story they put out yesterday, but unfortunately they don't seem inclined to say anything on the record...

A word to ProPublica: in the age of the internet, answering questions about your stories is part of the job. Clamming up--saying that you will not answer questions about why you wrote the stories you did unless you can take it off the record--is the quickest way to burn credibility I can think of.

You don't get that many chances, guys...