My wife had one of her research projects get some media attention. For one interviewer, she wouldn't give the quote that they wanted (essentially a value judgme

My wife had one of her research projects get some media attention. For one interviewer, she wouldn't give the quote that they wanted (essentially a value judgment that her research couldn't possibly answer), so they got the quote from someone else who had nothing to do with the project. I can't say that is what happened here as the quote seems quite innocuous. Alternatively, they do sometimes want to get a view from someone unrelated to the project in order to get a feel for how important/interesting the result truly is.