Freedom of the press as commonly understood in the US is a misnomer. Today we are most limited by access-based journalism. Journalist careers generally depend more on access than anything else. As such, their subjects have tremendous power if wielded smartly. PR departments are tasked with wielding this most efficiently.

By being vague in the pretense of that power-wielding landed this subject the benefit of the journalist doing the last mile dirty work of being specific. The hope is that this will buy her another interview, and another interview, and so on. They (the journalist) may have another plan in mind, but their power to execute it is limited by their professional mobility and utility to the subject.