The White House this week only allowed one local reporter to attend an event with Ivanka Trump and Apple CEO Tim Cook.
Idaho Statesman correspondent Cynthia Sewell said that the paper was surprised when the invitation to tour an elementary school in Wilder came with a set of conditions.
Sewell wrote:
On Monday morning, the White House informed the Statesman it could send one reporter and one photographer to observe Apple CEO Tim Cook and adviser to the president Ivanka Trump tour a Wilder elementary school the next morning. And there were conditions: The Statesman could not ask questions of or talk to Trump and Cook. It could only observe. The only other media attending the event would be a national crew from ABC.
According to Sewell, the Statesman encouraged the White House to allow additional reporters, but the request was refused. Other media were forced to set up across the street from the school.
"None were allowed on school property," she explained.
Following the photo op, the paper's staff was asked to leave while ABC News conducted an interview with Ivanka Trump.
But Wilder School District Superintendent Jeff Dillon called the event "much more than a photo op."
"Because if it was just that, they would not have had a clue what we are doing," he insisted. "But they were able to ask very good questions one-on-one, and really understand what was happening when they were talking with students and engaging with students."
"The best part about it is we did not put on some little spectacle to make it happen," he added. "This is what we do every day with students.”
