There’s little in the news business that bothers seasoned political reporters. We deal with personalities, egos, partisan attacks, attempts at humiliation, personal barbs, even veiled threats.
Most of it bounces off the hardened veterans of this noble effort to pry information loose about our government, those who wield power in it, and make sense of it all for the public. But one thing reporters never stop hating is when a public figure declines comment or simply doesn’t return a call.
That never applied to Barney Frank, the longtime Massachusetts congressman who died Wednesday from congestive heart failure at age 86 at his home in Ogunquit, Maine.
Frank was consistently accessible, ever quotable, always on the record, and honest to a fault. Love him or hate him – and there was often little middle ground – you’d be hard-pressed to find a story that included the sentence, “Frank did not return a call for comment” or “Frank refused to comment.”
If you were going to talk with him, you had best be armed with solid facts and good questions, or be subject to his famously acerbic style, which could slice through you before you knew it.
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Published by MassINC