Why cant they just tell us what they do know? within limits.
Inform the public but dont tip off the bad guy
Oh, we musn’t ‘panic’ the public, now must we?
I think it's a terrific idea, but there's a lot of fear that the competition will get ahead on the story. For some reason, the public is more likely to remember who had it first than they are to remember that the people who had it first were later determined to have made it all up.
Back in the day, we believed that our duty as reporters was to gather the facts and report them, not invent stuff to fill the void while were waiting.