Run-ins with difficult sources. by:Brittany Lancaster

By: Brittany Lancaster

Some sources are good, some sources are bad and some sources are just plain paranoid.

While working on a story for my health, wellness and fitness beat for reporting I had an idea for a story dealing with a unique class offered at CSU. I noticed that I had been enrolled in a class previously taught by that professor and already had the majority of his information.  With this professor at the helm of the classroom he seemed to be as normal as normal comes and I thought interviewing him writing this story would be fun and easy since I had a small relationship with this professor prior to my story idea.  I contacted him and reminded him what class I had taken with him and asked if he could spare some time with me to talk about another one of his classes that proved interesting to me.  I got no response.  After doing some research I learned that he was giving a presentation for alumni on the new class at CSU so I signed up to attend and emailed him saying I was going and hoped to speak with him. I got no response.  With similar luck or lack thereof, in both attempts to contact him I began to worry that I would have to change my topic with limited time left to work on my story.  I attended his talk and before his presentation approached him, said hello and introduced myself as a former student of his currently taking a reporting class with an interest in writing about his new course.  He entertained the conversation with others around in a polite fashion but never really gave me any real answer on if I could speak with him about his class and interview him. I wrote down much of what was presented that night and emailed him again that evening.  No response. The next morning I awoke to a response from each individual email I had sent him. He was raving on and on about why I wanted to know so much and why I had sent him so many emails and that I must be up to no good to be so nosy and persistent and why I hadn’t introduced myself to him at his presentation.

I had no inkling on how to handle this.

                This man seemed like a normal professor in his classroom, but for some reason via email he felt as though I was trying to soil his career or his name. He was in fact a scientist so maybe that’s where the ‘mad scientist’ nickname comes from. I later received an email from a man who said he represented the professor and that I could write about any information that I obtained from his presentation but that he could not meet with me for further questioning unless I wanted to meet with his lawyer. Needless to say I did what was suggested in the email; I used what I already had a washed my hands of the paranoid professor.