Stupid reporter tricks

There was a bank holdup Tuesday morning in a small town in the coverage area of my wife's newspaper.
The reporter for the competing daily - a pathetic, ineptly run rag that began publication about 5 months ago and only has a circulation of about 400 - is a clueless young woman in her first newspaper job out of college.
Rather than checking with police outside the bank, the girl walked into the bank, getting her fingerprints all over the place and pretty much mucking up the crime scene.
For those of you who don't know, this is a professional blunder of epic proportion. Any competent reporter knows you don't violate the integrity of a crime scene and that the worst thing you can do is interfere with investigators doing their work. Conversely, competent police investigators recognize that reporters also have a job to do and take care to give them whatever facts they can divulge without compromising the investigation. The detective handing this case for the local sheriff's department has an exemplary record of cooperating with the media, especially with reporters (like my wife) who have a proven record of accuracy and trustworthiness.
The detective gave the girl his card and asked her to call him on Wednesday to arrange to come in and be fingerprinted - just like all of the bank employees - so investigators could eliminate their prints and perhaps isolate those belonging to the perp.
Wednesday passes and she doesn't call.
This morning, she calls the detective to ask questions about the case. He says, "I thought you were going to call yesterday and arrange to come in and get fingerprinted."
Silence.
He goes on to explain in a non-confrontational way that she's not a suspect and it's just part of the normal procedure of eliminating all of the irrelevant fingerprints.
She finally tells him her editor said she didn't have to do it and if he has anything more to say about it, he should say it to their attorney.
No apology for compromising the crime scene or for not calling yesterday - just a brutally stupid refusal to cooperate.
I fully expect her and her paper to try to frame this situation as a Freedom of the Press issue. However, there is absolutely no basis in First Amendment free press rights or any other traditional journalistic practice to justify her non-cooperation.
In fact, she could be charged with tampering with evidence and obstruction of justice. And nobody, not even the American Civil Liberties Union, will be able to mount a credible defense.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.