Interviews by e-mail

Here's a blog post by a Tribune reporter, taking another newspaper to task for declining to engage in an e-mail interview. He raises some interesting points, but I still have to say, e-mail interviews are an absolute last resort. I also wish someone would raise the issue that the subject in question is a public employee and refusing to answer questions as such should raise red flags for the citizens paying her salary. Also, his assumption that an e-mail from the president reflects her own words, rather than those of her PR staff, is naive. He should toddle through J202.
What do you think?