“Did not respond to a request for comment” is technically true and rhetorically loaded: it frames silence as evasion. But it never tells you the one thing that makes silence meaningful — how long they had.

A request fired at 4:55 p.m. for a 5:00 p.m. story produces the same sentence as a week of dodged calls. Sometimes it’s stonewalling. Sometimes it’s a deadline no human could meet.