The press has for decades paid to travel with the secretary of state, but Tillerson denies concealing from coverage after breaking with this precedent
Rex Tillerson has defended his decision to block American reporters from his first major mission to Asia, saying: Im not a big media press access person. I personally dont need it.
Although newsrooms have for decades paid the state department for aircraft seats when the top envoy travellings, the secretary of state merely allowed one reporter to join him on a trip to Japan, South Korea and China.
In an interview with the reporter from the conservative Independent Journal Review, a website partly owned by a top adviser to Vice-President Mike Pence, Tillerson insisted the decision was induced first for cost reasons and second for his preference to work behind closed doors.
Were not concealing from any coverage of what were doing, he said, arguing that major outlets often have foreign bureaux. They have people there. So its not like they cant cover whats happening there. The only thing thats missing is the chance to talk more in the air.
Tillerson said he did not have this appetite or hunger to speak with reporters about US diplomatic missions.
We have some very, very complex strategic issues to build our way through with important countries around the world, he said, and are still not going to get through them by only messaging through the media. We get through them in face-to-face sessions behind closed doors.
However, the absence of regular reporting from Tillersons trip has created confusion on his current visit with South Korean officials. In the interview, Tillerson accused Korean officials of trying to save face by misstating what had happened.
On Friday, the Korea Herald cited government officials to report that Tillerson had abbreviated diplomatic consultations and public events in Seoul because he was feeling fatigue.
The Herald report said Tillerson did not attend a dinner with South Koreas interim president, but did have dinner sessions with Japanese officials during his journey there.
Without regular US reporters around Tillerson to confirm or correct that report, it circulated widely until Tillerson personally rebutted the claims.
They never invited us for dinner, then at the last minute they realized that optically it wasnt playing very well in public for them, so they put out a statement that we didnt have dinner because I was tired, Tillerson said.
The IJR reporter asked: Are you saying they lied about it?
No, it was just their justification, Tillerson said. I had dinner last night.
Tillerson did not answer a subsequent question about with whom he had dinner.
The host country decides whether we are going to do things or not, he said. We didnt decide that.
The secretary of state understood that the press helps him communicate not just to the American people, but to others in the world that are listening. But he cited his decades of experience with oil giant ExxonMobil as evidence that he did not need to use a bully pulpit to move American objectives at home and abroad.
Ive been very successful diplomatically for over 25 years, he said. Done some really tough deals around the world with some really difficult governments. Ive been successful because I was always able to respect their integrity and respect the fact that they have a population they have to take care of.
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