just sent another email to the mayor's office asking them to treat me with the same respect as other reporters by responding to my questions. Every elected official and spokesperson who does this seems to think they've discovered a cheat code, when readers correctly see it as a lack of transparency.

When people see "the mayor's office did not respond to repeated requests for comment"/"a list of questions," etc.—especially when that mayor is known for playing games with access—they don't think "wow, what did PubliCola do?", they think "wow, he really doesn't want to answer questions."