Secretary of State Rex Tillerson addressed concerns about press access in the first interview filed by the only reporter he brought along on his trip to Asia.
“I’m not a big media press access person. I personally don’t need it,” Tillerson told Erin McPike, a reporter at the conservative news outlet Independent Journal Review. “I understand it’s important to get the message of what we’re doing out, but I also think there’s only a purpose in getting the message out when there’s something to be done.”
Several journalists have complained about their lack of access to Tillerson on his first trip as the nation’s top diplomat, which initially was announced without any reporters invited to come along. They have also noted the McPike’s lack of experience.
The State Department Correspondents’ Association said in a statement that it “is disappointed that Secretary Tillerson chose to travel this week to North Asia without a full contingent of the diplomatic press corps or even a pool reporter.” Some in the diplomatic press corps have resorted to taking commercial flights to follow Tillerson.
Tillerson echoed previous statements by State Department officials, saying the primary reason for inviting one reporter is because “we’re trying to save money.”
“The fact that the press corps is not traveling on the plane with me, I understand that there’s two aspects of that,” he said. One, there’s a convenience aspect. I get it. The other is, I guess, what I’m told is that there’s this long tradition that the secretary spends time on the plane with the press. I don’t know that I’ll do a lot of that. I’m just not … that’s not the way I tend to work. That’s not the way I tend to spend my time.”
Tillerson explained that he spends the “entire time” working on the plane, suggesting he would not be able to sit down with the press during the flight. But, he noted, “maybe things will change and evolve in the future. But I hope people don’t misunderstand there’s nothing else behind it than those simple objectives.” He added later that any decision on press participation will be “trip dependent.”
Tillerson asserted that the relationship he has with the media is “very important to help me communicate not just to the American people, but to others in the world that are listening.”
“And when I have something important and useful to say, I know where everybody is and I know how to go out there and say it,” Tillerson continued. “But if I don’t because we’re still formulating and we’re still deciding what we’re going to do, there is not going to be a lot to say. And I know that you’ve asked me a lot of questions here that I didn’t answer, and I’m not answering them because we have some very, very complex strategic issues to make our way through with important countries around the world, and we’re not going to get through them by just messaging through the media. We get through them in face to face meetings behind closed doors. We can be very frank, open, and honest with one another and then we’ll go out and we’ll have something to share about that, but the truth of the matter is all of the tactics and all of the things we’re going to do you will know them after they’ve happened.”
