Almost all of them were disgusted with the second-guessing of the past two years, as well as the gag order that had been imposed on them, and were dying to tell their side of the story. But none of them would agree to appear on camera, for fear of losing their jobs. Most people have strange ideas about how television journalism works. They get these notions from movies, I suspect, in which TV journalists are invariably portrayed as lissome pariahs and obnoxious twits, chasing some poor slob with cameras and questions as he's trying to get from his house to his car. Doorstepping is actually a tactic of last resort, spawned by the need to give the viewer at least a glimpse of the elusive bureaucrat who won't return your phone calls.
Fairness demands such interviews.
The medium demands it, too. The dramatic content of network magazine shows revolves around the sitdown. It's a formula that 60 Minutes invented and, with Mike Wallace and then Ed Bradley, has practically perfected. At the heart of every hard-nosed Bradley piece is at least one Confrontation Scene, in which the correspondent brings forth evidence of wrongdoing and demands an accounting from the powers that be. The groundwork for these interviews is done by a team of reporters and producers, who also compose questions for the interview and brief the correspondent.