When the the red flag were raised if they had a solid new theory against them, they now can explain it to the journalist. If this new theory isn't dumb, even i

When the the red flag were raised if they had a solid new theory against them, they now can explain it to the journalist. If this new theory isn't dumb, even if it proved wrong, it may save their faces (as there often is some useful lesson to draw from such "this new idea is apparently good, let's put it at test" failure). They didn't. Therefore either the journalist didn't interview them (or neglected their answer), xor they didn't reply because they had no new theory, and their only motive was "let's try to Please the Master, by sheer luck we may succeed and will benefit from it, and in case of failure the Master will not punish because he liked the objective and the approach".