A pattern familiar to anyone who has conducted a significant number of executive interviews: some of the most candid, specific commentary from a subject comes not during the recorded portion of the conversation, but in the informal exchange before or after it, once the interview has formally concluded and the executive relaxes out of interview mode. This material is genuinely useful for an interviewer's own understanding, but it raises a real question about what's fair to use.
The ethical line here
Standard journalistic practice treats material shared after an interview has explicitly concluded, without a clear on-the-record agreement covering that portion of the conversation, as off the record by default unless otherwise negotiated-using it directly, especially in a way that could be traced back to the executive, would violate a reasonable understanding of when the interview ended.
What informal candor is still useful for
Even when informal post-interview commentary can't be directly quoted, it's genuinely useful for an interviewer's own understanding of a topic, informing better follow-up questions in future interviews or providing context for evaluating other public statements from the same source, without needing to be published as attributed material.
When it's appropriate to ask for permission to use it
Where an informal comment is genuinely important and the executive seems willing, the appropriate practice is to explicitly ask whether they'd be comfortable having that specific comment attributed on the record, rather than assuming implicit permission because the comment was substantively interesting. Some executives will agree once asked directly; the request itself respects the boundary they reasonably assumed was in place.
Why this discipline matters for long-term access
Executives and their communications teams talk to each other, and a publication with a reputation for using informal, off-record commentary without permission will find access to candid conversation shrinking over time, as sources become more guarded even during the formally on-record portion of interviews. Respecting the boundary is, beyond being the right practice, what preserves the kind of access that produces genuinely useful interviews in the first place.