It depends if “public comment” is akin to going on the record. Then staying silent means they didn’t say anything, and not making a public comment means they said something to us that we promised not to make public.

Saying something not on the record is actually pretty common. And is most of what private sources are about and for. They might be able to point a reporter to someone or something that would be able to be reported on. Trust is a super important difference between an established reporter and a new reporter.