Setting a fair period for reply

There is a particular kind of dread that sets in the night before publication, when a reporter realises the person at the centre of a story was contacted late, or vaguely, or not at all. It is one of the most avoidable failures in investigative work, and also one of the most common, usually because the deadline arrived faster than the plan for contact did.

A fair period for reply is not a fixed number of hours written down somewhere official. It depends on the complexity of the allegation, how many people need to check records or consult colleagues, and whether the subject is a private individual or an organisation with a communications team on standby. What matters is that the period is genuinely workable, not a formality set so tight that no real answer could arrive in time.

When to make the first approach

The instinct to hold the approach until the last possible moment, so the subject has no time to interfere with the story, is understandable but usually counterproductive. An approach made only once the reporting is essentially finished tends to produce a reflexive "no comment," which helps no one. Approaching earlier, once the core findings are reasonably firm, gives the subject room to respond substantively, and gives the reporter room to adjust language if the response changes the picture.

This does not mean showing your full hand before it is ready. It means separating what is solid enough to put to someone from what is still being checked, and sending only the former with enough context that a real answer is possible.

Recording the approach itself

Every approach should leave a paper trail: what was sent, through which channel, to which named contact, and at what time. This record matters as much for your own protection as for fairness to the subject, because it lets you state plainly in the finished piece whether a response was received, declined, or never returned.

"A reasonable period for reply is one your subject could plausibly meet — not one you could plausibly survive."

If the deadline genuinely cannot move, say so honestly in the approach itself rather than pretending otherwise. Subjects are more likely to respond quickly to a request that explains the constraint than to one that reads as an afterthought.

None of this removes judgement from the process. But a consistent habit of early, clearly recorded approaches removes most of the guesswork about what "fair" looks like on any individual story.