He asked me other questions; I didn't answer them.

Yes, I talked to the press.

I just repeated what I said on my blog to a reporter for Inside Higher Ed. The TBOC guys have a right to be anonymous. Their right is the same right that was exercised by great whistleblowers, like Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the pentagon papers.

I said it on my blog. I said it to a reporter. (Except I blanked on Daniel Ellsberg's name, and just called him "the pentagon papers guy")

He asked me other questions, I didn't answer them.

It was a little object lesson in how reporters work, though. He called and asked if I would say something defending TBOC's anonymity. He had the space in his article where he wanted a quote, so he found someone who would say what he wanted. I also noticed that the tape recorder did not come on until I started giving him the quote he wanted.

In any case, I think I did the right thing: I defended a principle in public, without spreading a bunch of rumors about the university. I suppose you might think it was a mistake to talk to a scandal sheet like Inside Higher Ed at all. But I figure, if you have said it on a blog with your name on it, you should be willing to say it to a reporter.

We'll see how the comment looks in the context of the article. Hopefully it won't twist what I said. I don't have much experience talking to reporters. The last time I did so was as an undergraduate, when I was interviewed by an Annapolis MD paper about student protests against the first gulf war. No doubt this kind of inexperience is why public relations departments want to be the sole way the university relates to the public. Oh well.