WGBH in Boston is working up a piece about the Fox 61 / Hartford Courant merger for a program called “Beat The Press.”

A reporter from the show called me for help, and of course I gave it to him because 1. he is a reporter like I used to be and 2. I am not a hypocrite very often and 3. he was interested in a subject I thought worthy of public attention.

He didn’t offer to put me on camera, which is a good thing for Boston TV viewers, but he did want to talk to Editor Cliff Teutsch.

Cliff was not interested in that, or in having the reporter in the building.

Neither, I noticed, was Steve Carver interested in talking to Ken Gosselin — one of his own reporters — when Ken was writing up the announcement of the merger and appointment of the new publisher. (Rich Graziano did consent to an interview with the reporter from WGBH.)

I can think of a lot of reasons why an editor and a departing publisher would not agree to talk to a reporter, but I regret that none of them are very good. It’s analgous to judges who absolutely refuse to take breathalyzer tests when they get stopped for drunk driving. It sends a powerful message to the rest of us about the priorities at the top and their faith in the system.

Mainly it makes me sad….   sad that good men, under various pressures, must hunker down, back away, and hold back from us their honest comments.  I know it can be, for them, a lose – lose. It’s what they choose to lose that bothers me.

Meanwhile, other executives come up with some of the most over-spun verbiage imaginable to try to put a good face on hard times.

My case in point: Chicago Tribune Editor Gerould Kern’s description of the paper’s move to shrink its Saturday edition.

“Beginning April 4, the Saturday edition will be reconfigured with a new, tighter section lineup that right-sizes the edition to match consumer and advertiser needs,” Kern told his staff.  (The full memo is here.)

Here’s my concern –  or perhaps where I reveal my journalistic naivete. Journalists should speak the truth. The honest truth. That’s what makes them useful and valuable to society (and sometimes a hazard to themselves).  That’s what defines us, isn’t it?

I’ve probably said too much.