President Barack Obama has granted an interview to the student newspaper at Rutgers University because the paper’s editor had the guts to ask for it.
Obama interrupted a question-and-answer session at the White House that press secretary Josh Earnest held Thursday for visiting college students. He decided to take questions and the first person Obama chose was Dan Corey, editor-in-chief of The Daily Targum at Rutgers.
“In light of the news of you speaking at our commencement, I was wondering, would you be interested in being interviewed by our newspaper?” Corey asked.
Obama is scheduled to deliver one of his final college commencement addresses as president at the New Jersey campus on May 15, so he decided to give the paper some “play.”
“I have to say that, normally, I coordinate carefully with my press team before we grant interviews, but I am favorably disposed towards giving a little bit of time,” Obama said. “It may not be a really long interview. But I figured, give the college newspaper a little bit of play.”