times insider delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how news, features and opinion come together at the new york times. in this piece, alessandra stanley, a times correspondent who profiled tiffany trump for sunday styles, describes her attempts to crack a mysterious trump family dynamic. journalists have an adage about writing profiles of the rich and famous: the only thing worse than not getting the interview is getting it. still, i was quite surprised that the trump campaign didn<u+2019>t let me interview his youngest daughter, tiffany, for a profile in sunday styles <u+2014> even after i spoke to her half sister, ivanka; her mother, marla maples; a sister-in-law, and many friends. it<u+2019>s not unusual for a subject to refuse to participate in a profile at first, then speak up once it<u+2019>s clear the piece is happening anyway and isn<u+2019>t meant to be a hit job. this wasn<u+2019>t an investigative probe into donald j. trump<u+2019>s tax returns or charitable donations. then again, the trump family dynamic is almost as mysterious: his children<u+2019>s obedience, loyalty and nearly impeccable public demeanor impresses even some of his harshest critics. a lot of voters say they figure he can<u+2019>t be too bad if none of his children has defied or disappointed him. (quite the opposite: they are so attentive and doting i called them <u+201c>helicopter offspring.<u+201d>) tiffany, 22, seemed to be in the same mold, but nobody knew much about her, and many were curious about whether and how she measured up against the three adult children from his first marriage. i hadn<u+2019>t expected this kind of resistance from the campaign when i started the reporting this summer. i began the usual way: searching news clips, facebook, twitter and linkedin for people who knew her in high school and college, in los angeles and new york, and asking trump family friends all over for their insights. some said they had nondisclosure agreements; others said they had to get permission from the campaign before talking. the campaign has a public relations firm handling some of its media requests so i spoke often to melissa nathan, who was terrific and tried her best to help. finally, i asked her to persuade the campaign to provide a list of people who could talk to me about tiffany, while continuing to try to find other sources of my own. (i did, but almost none agreed to speak on the record.) i had many fun and interesting conversations with the people the campaign made available <u+2014> particularly with janice kiker, a close trump family friend in georgia who was a hoot in a refined southern drawl. she is a <u+201c>huge<u+201d> admirer of mr. trump and wanted me to know so; in fact, the only thing she didn<u+2019>t want me to tell anyone was that she once shook hands with hillary clinton. for reasons i still don<u+2019>t get, the campaign didn<u+2019>t relent even after i explained that readers might not understand why tiffany would pose for a portrait but not talk to the reporter. michael kirby smith, the photographer who shot that portrait in a penthouse at trump tower, said tiffany and her mother, marla, who acted as tiffany<u+2019>s stylist, were both very nice and polite though <u+201c>not super outgoing.<u+201d> i<u+2019>m sure she could have handled it. yet the campaign was subliminally suggesting that somehow she couldn<u+2019>t. so the experience taught me less about tiffany than it did about the trump campaign. the candidate may be a loose cannon, but his media handlers are every bit as cautious, defensive and unyielding as the clinton team. sometimes, though, staying on message sends a mixed signal.
why wouldn<u+2019>t tiffany trump speak for herself?
alessandra stanley