Mark Pothier’s commentary on the decision by the town manager to prohibit communication with the PI was important in laying out the history and the unfortunate and inappropriate response from the town to PI’s reporting. That noted, the PI’s response might have been better served not to define the “relationship between government and journalists [as] necessarily adversarial when it comes to our role in holding public officials accountable.” The emphasis of “adversarial” is on people and conflict (Free Dictionary.Com defines adversarial as characterized by antagonism and conflict), while the goal of reporting is not people and not conflict. It is rather to create a window of truth and facts, collaboratively, if possible, and through investigation and rigorous seeking of facts if needed. Stating the process as necessarily adversarial may have the unintentional consequence of defining, creating, and maintaining a potential collaborator as an antagonistic and hostile foe.
– Karl Kuban