Yeah, USAToday probably called Bellsouth Customer Service and was connected to some flunky in Bangalore.
It's hard enough just getting the phone service fixed, which is the primary purpose of those customer service "techs". Getting top-level information is way beyond their grasp and way beyond their level of responsibility. I don't doubt that USAToday called somebody well outside of those that might know about these things. Their answer was probably "we'll look into it and get back to you", which should have been enough to give USAToday pause, but they apparently wanted the "scoop" or wanted to drag somebody on the right through the mud.
It's too bad that the left owns the vast majority of the media news.
I all fairness, I'd say she probably had the number for Bell-South's PR representative who likely didn't even know what the NSA acronym stands for and absolutely no knowledge if the company had or had not turned over an information. The fact that they called "the night before the story was published" means they didn't give a damn if it were true or not. It was after regular business hours when the PR rep was probably at home with his/her feet up watching TV and with only hours to figure out who to call to either verify or deny the story. That "who to call" thing is the tough one. Corporate people are generally not sitting around waiting for off the wall press inquiries with pre-prepared say-nothing statements like government slumps. They have a life.
If it involved a security related issue any answer, affirmative or negative, would have to go through a team of lawyers to work out a statement. If Bell South had been working with the NSA, it would have been a tightly held secret and not something that was common knowledge. The PR rep might have been able to contact some of the execs who said "I never heard of it" but that does not mean it didn't happen and to issue a statement that might not be true is a capital offense in the PR world.
Imagine trying to find and craft an answer on the short deadline given them by the drive-by media.
Rule one of Corporate PR is to never lie. Rule 2 is that if you don't know the answer, don't guess. Ask for more time to find out or just don't say anything, which apparently is what Bell South did when put in an impossible situation. You never let a media deadline drive you into a serious mistake.
USA Today claimed they had worked on the story for months yet waited till the last possible moment when they knew damn well they were asking the impossible. Could they have held the story for one more day to give Bell South at least one business day to provide an answer? Yes, they could have but intentionally chose not to. That goes well beyond shoddy journalism. It shows that they don't give a damn if the story is true or not.