If your journalist friends are good friends, maybe you could agree with them that all of your conversations are off the record by default, and they have to ask if they want to put anything on the record (and maybe even get that in writing just in case?). And then only remind them of this if you want to talk about something that readily comes to mind as being potentially sensitive/newsworthy.
If your journalist friends are good friends, maybe you could agree with them that all of your conversations are off the record by default, and they have to ask if they want to put anything on the record (and maybe even get that in writing just in case?). And then only remind them of this if you want to talk about something that readily comes to mind as being potentially sensitive/newsworthy.