No comment

No comment is a phrase used as a response to journalistic inquiries which the respondent does not wish to answer. Public figures may decline to comment on issues they are questioned or have nothing to say about the issue at the time. Officials not given authorization by their higher authority to speak to the media similarly may decline to comment.

No comment indicates that the speaker does not choose to say anything on the subject, and it is automatically invalidated if the speaker then comments or answers questions. It is not a request for the material to be considered off the record or otherwise kept confidential. If the speaker wishes to talk about the subject, but does not wish to be named as a source, they must obtain the journalist's explicit agreement in advance that the response is not to be used for attribution.

Criticism

Some public relations professionals have argued against the use of no comment, stating that one of the goals of working with the press is to resolve issues before they become hot topics. Offering no comment allows the press to fill in the blanks, diverts the focus of the publicity, and sacrifices an opportunity to communicate key messages.

No Comment (disambiguation)

"No comment" is a phrase used to avoid answering questions from journalists.

No Comment may also refer to:

No Comment (band)

No Comment were an American powerviolence band from North Hollywood, California, active from 1987 to 1993.

History

Along with other powerviolence bands such as Crossed Out, Capitalist Casualties and Man Is The Bastard, No Comment were influential in what was known to become the "West Coast powerviolence" scene for their aggressive musical and conceptual take on the hardcore punk genre. The band's vocalist, Andrew Beattie, confessed to liking both the metal and hardcore genres while hating crossover bands such as D.R.I. and Discharge, which combined the two styles. Beattie stated his band "just wanted to show that 'Hardcore' was still alive yet there was no real 'scene'."

Response

Powerviolence according to Spazz bassist/vocalist, Chris Dodge, (who was behind the scene's main label Slap-a-Ham Records) peaked in the mid - 90s, around the time No Comment released their celebrated EP Downsided on Slap-a-Ham. XLR8R described Downsided as "a definitive document of powerviolence’s beyond-tantrum aggression". Music metadata database Rate Your Music ranked Downsided No. 7/1000 favorite EPs released in 1992, and No. 255/5000 favorite EPs of all time at a rating of 3.74/5 from 207 ratings.