Someone might be out about being bi at an after-party with friends, but not want to see that detail being confirmed by a fact-checker for a national paper. This doesn’t seem particularly unusual.
This isn’t the only thing that could go wrong, but it’s a straightforward example. Perhaps they don’t want their full name blatantly linked to their online account. There are lots of reasons that people might want privacy. Unless your life is at risk, I would not assume that you have privacy from a journalist who isn’t a personal friend unless they have an explicit commitment. I trust journalists who are also community members to not take harmful advantage of access.
Something that is sometimes not obvious to people not used to dealing with journalists is that off-the-record sometimes means “I can’t officially tell you this, so please find another source who can corroborate it”. It’s not remotely the same thing as an expectation of privacy and good sense that one would have with a friend.
This isn’t the only thing that could go wrong, but it’s a straightforward example. Perhaps they don’t want their full name blatantly linked to their online account. There are lots of reasons that people might want privacy. Unless your life is at risk, I would not assume that you have privacy from a journalist who isn’t a personal friend unless they have an explicit commitment. I trust journalists who are also community members to not take harmful advantage of access.
Something that is sometimes not obvious to people not used to dealing with journalists is that off-the-record sometimes means “I can’t officially tell you this, so please find another source who can corroborate it”. It’s not remotely the same thing as an expectation of privacy and good sense that one would have with a friend.