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A press secretary or press officer is a senior advisor who provides advice on how to deal with the news media and, using news management techniques, helps their employer to maintain a positive public image and avoid negative media coverage.

They often, but not always, act as the organization's senior spokesperson. Many governments also have press secretaries. A deputy press secretary is typically a mid-level political staffer who assists the press secretary and communications director with aspects of public outreach. They often write the press releases and media advisories for review by the press secretary and communications director. There are usually assistant press secretaries and press officers that support the press secretary.

See also[link]

• Spokesperson
• Press service
• Office of the Press Secretary (Philippines)
• White House Press Secretary
• Press Office (Royal Household)
• Chief Cabinet Secretary
• Spin Doctor

This job-, occupation-, or vocation-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

Norah O'Donnell (born January 23, 1974) is an American print and television journalist, currently serving as the Chief White House Correspondent for CBS News in Washington, D.C., a position she has held since June 2011.^[3]

Early life[link]

O'Donnell was born in Washington, D.C. She graduated from Douglas MacArthur High School (San Antonio, Texas)^{[citation needed]}. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in philosophy and a masters degree in international affairs from Georgetown University^[4][5]

Career[link]

O'Donnell initially served as staff writer for Roll Call, where she covered Congress.

A commentator for the NBC News Today Show, Chief Washington Correspondent for MSNBC, and from September 2003 to May 2005, the White House correspondent for NBC News. O'Donnell was also a contributing anchor for MSNBC Live, and a rotating news anchor on Weekend Today. O'Donnell has done reports that have appeared on numerous NBC News broadcasts, including NBC Nightly News, The Today Show, Dateline NBC, and MSNBC. O'Donnell has also filled in for Chris Matthews as host of Hardball with Chris Matthews and was a regular pundit for The Chris Matthews Show. She also co-hosted the New York City St. Patrick's Day Parade on WNBC since 2007.

Since joining CBS, she has filled in for Scott Pelley on the CBS Evening News on October 10, 2011 and again on November 25, 2011.

Washingtonian Magazine has named O’Donnell as one of Washington’s 100 most powerful women. O’Donnell has also been named to Irish American Magazine’s 2000 “Top 100 Irish Americans” list.

Personal life[link]

O'Donnell lives in Washington, D.C. with her husband, restaurateur Geoff Tracy (owner of D.C. restaurant, Chef Geoff's), whom she married in June 2001. On May 20, 2007,^[6] Norah and Geoff became the parents of twins, whom they named Grace and Henry.^[7] Their third child, daughter Riley Norah Tracy, was born on July 5, 2008; O'Donnell noted that her daughter's first name had been suggested by Tim Russert, who died three weeks prior to Riley's birth. O'Donnell and her husband Geoff Tracy made a cookbook for parents titled Baby Love: Healthy, Easy, Delicious Meals for Your Baby and Toddler, released on August 31, 2010.^[8]

Awards[link]

O'Donnell won the Sigma Delta Chi Award for Breaking News Coverage for the Dateline NBC story "DC In Crisis," which aired on the night of September 11, 2001.

She also won an Emmy for NBC News' Election Night coverage in 2008.

Criticism[link]

O'Donnell was heavily criticized by conservatives for her interview of a Sarah Palin supporter attending a book signing. While speaking with people in the line, O'Donnell pointed out the inconsistency of Jackie Seal, a Palin supporter, wearing a shirt against the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, which Palin supported. Several conservative hosts and bloggers, most notably Glenn Beck, criticized O'Donnell for the interview. O'Donnell wrote on Twitter that she had voted in the 2008 election; however, Jackie said she was 17 years old and therefore did not vote in the election.^[9]

In April 2010, O'Donnell implied that Newt Gingrich had made racist comments at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference for a basketball reference he made when criticizing Barack Obama. Gingrich had said “What we need is a president, not an athlete. Shooting three point shots may be clever, but it doesn’t put anybody to work.”^[10] In response to the criticism, Gingrich said, "The left is becoming a parody of itself ... she immediately said that must be a racist comment. It's relatively hard to go from, 'we need somebody who is a good president more than somebody who shoots three points shots,' to, 'that must have been racist.'"^[11]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Norah O'Donnell - Nightly News with Brian Williams
• Norah O'Donnell on Twitter
• Norah O'Donnell on Charlie Rose

Jay Carney
29th White House Press Secretary
Incumbent
Assumed office February 11, 2011
President	Barack Obama
Deputy	Jennifer Psaki
Preceded by	Robert Gibbs
Personal details
Born	James Carney (1965-05-22) May 22, 1965 (age 47) Washington, D.C., U.S.
Political party	Democratic Party
Spouse(s)	Claire Shipman
Children	2
Alma mater	Yale University
Profession	Journalist
Website	White House Briefing Room

James "Jay" Carney (born May 22, 1965) is President Barack Obama's second White House Press Secretary.^[1] Prior to his appointment as Press Secretary, replacing Robert Gibbs, he was director of communications to Vice President Joe Biden.^[2] Carney previously served as Washington Bureau Chief for Time magazine, a post he held from September 2005 until December 2008, and as a regular contributor in the "roundtable" segment of ABC News' This Week with George Stephanopoulos.

Personal life and education[link]

Carney was raised in Northern Virginia, attended high school at The Lawrenceville School in New Jersey,^[3] and earned a B.A. in Russian and Eastern European Studies from Yale University, graduating cum laude, in 1987.^[4] He and his wife, Claire Shipman (a senior correspondent for ABC News)^[4], live in Washington, D.C., with their son and daughter.

Journalism career[link]

After being hired as a reporter for The Miami Herald in 1987, Carney joined Time magazine as its Miami Bureau Chief in 1989. Carney worked as a correspondent in Time's Moscow Bureau for three years, covering the collapse of the U.S.S.R.. He came to Washington in 1993 to report on the Bill Clinton White House.^[4]

He has written and reported about the presidency of George W. Bush, and was one of a handful of reporters who were aboard Air Force One with President Bush on September 11, 2001.^[4] Carney later won the 2003 Gerald R. Ford Prize for Distinguished Reporting on the Presidency.

Carney was Time's Washington Bureau Deputy Chief from 2003 to 2005, and Chief from September 2005 until December 2008. He was assigned to the magazine’s Washington Bureau in that tenure while also being able to write about politics and national affairs. Carney has also worked for CNN (another TIME Warner division) as a special correspondent.

Carney was one of the early mainstream journalists to take up the medium of blogging.

Work in Obama administration[link]

Jay Carney (middle right) in a White House staff meeting in the Oval Office, May 11, 2011

On December 15, 2008, Carney went from the private sector to public service as Director of Communications to Vice President Joe Biden.^[2][5]

In January 2011, Carney was selected to become the Obama administration's second White House Press Secretary.^[1] He was named the successor to previous White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs by White House Chief of Staff, William Daley.^[6][7] Carney was one of fourteen White House appointees announced by Daley on January 27.^[7]

He meets with the president daily, and can have four or five meetings a day to work on how to present ideas.

During a March 13, 2012, press briefing he revealed that his favorite band is Guided by Voices.^[8][9]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Jay Carney at WhoRunsGov at The Washington Post
• Appearances on C-SPAN
• Jay Carney on Charlie Rose

v t e White House Press Secretaries Akerson Joslin Early Daniels Ross Early Short Tubby Hagerty Salinger Reedy Moyers Christian Ziegler terHorst Nessen Powell Brady Speakes Fitzwater Myers McCurry Lockhart Siewert Fleischer McClellan Snow Perino Gibbs Carney

v t e Joe Biden's Office of the Vice President Position Appointee Position Appointee Chief of Staff to the Vice President Bruce Reed Chief of Staff to the Second Lady Catherine Russell Counsel to the Vice President Cynthia Hogan Director of Administration for the Office of the Vice President Moises Vela Counselor to the Vice President Mike Donilon Domestic Policy Adviser to the Vice President Terrell McSweeny Assistant to the Vice President for Intergovernmental Affairs and Public Liaison Evan Ryan Chief Economist and Economic Policy Adviser to the Vice President Jared Bernstein Assistant to the Vice President and Director of Communications Jay Carney Press Secretary to the Vice President Elizabeth Alexander Deputy Chief of Staff to the Vice President Alan Hoffman Deputy Press Secretary to the Vice President Annie Tomasini Deputy National Security Adviser to the Vice President Brian McKeon Director of Legislative Affairs Sudafi Henry Residence Manager and Social Secretary for the Vice President and Second Lady Carlos Elizondo Director of Communications for the Second Lady Courtney O’Donnell National Security Adviser to the Vice President Tony Blinken

Robert Gibbs
Gibbs in June 2010
28th White House Press Secretary
In office January 20, 2009 – February 11, 2011
President	Barack Obama
Deputy	Jennifer Psaki
Preceded by	Dana Perino
Succeeded by	Jay Carney
Personal details
Born	Robert Lane Gibbs (1971-03-29) March 29, 1971 (age 41) Auburn, Alabama, U.S.
Political party	Democratic Party
Alma mater	North Carolina State University
Website	White House Briefing Room

Robert Lane Gibbs^[1] (born March 29, 1971) was the 28th White House Press Secretary. Gibbs was the communications director for then-U.S. Senator Barack Obama and Obama's 2008 presidential campaign.^[2] Gibbs, who has worked with Obama since 2004, was press secretary of John Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign and has previously specialized in Senate campaigns, having served as communications director for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and for four individual Senate campaigns, including those of Obama in 2004 and Fritz Hollings in 1998.^[3] Gibbs was also the press secretary of Representative Bob Etheridge.^[4] On November 22, 2008, Gibbs was announced as the press secretary of the Obama administration.^[5] He assumed the role of press secretary on January 20, 2009, and gave his first official briefing on January 22.

On January 5, 2011, Gibbs announced that he would leave the White House to become an outside advisor to the administration. He left on February 11, 2011.

Early life and education[link]

Gibbs was born in Auburn, Alabama.^[6] His parents, Nancy Jean (née Lane) and Robert Coleman Gibbs, worked in the Auburn University library system and involved their son in politics at an early age.^[1][7][8] Nancy Gibbs would take Robert, then known as "Bobby," to local League of Women Voters meetings rather than hire a babysitter, and involved him in "voter re-identification" work at the county courthouse.^[9] Gibbs attended Auburn City Schools and Auburn High School.^[6] At Auburn High, Gibbs played saxophone in the Auburn High School Band, was a goalkeeper on the Tigers' soccer team, and participated in the school's debate squad. Gibbs graduated from Auburn High in 1989,^[10] in the same class as novelist Ace Atkins, LEGO artist Eric Harshbarger, and the Chief Hospitalist at Valley Medical Center, Dr. Michael Mena.

Gibbs went on to attend the North Carolina State University, serving as goalkeeper for the North Carolina State Wolfpack soccer team from 1990 to 1992.^[11] Gibbs graduated from North Carolina State cum laude with a B.A. in political science in 1993.^[4]

Career[link]

While a student at North Carolina State in 1991, Gibbs became an intern for Alabama's 3rd congressional district Congressman Glen Browder. Gibbs quickly rose through the ranks of Browder's staff, rising to become the representative's executive assistant in Washington, D.C. Gibbs returned to Alabama in 1996 to work on Browder's unsuccessful Senate campaign that year.^[9] In 1997, Gibbs was press secretary for Congressman Bob Etheridge of North Carolina and, in 1998, was spokesman for Senator Fritz Hollings' successful re-election campaign.^[4] Gibbs worked in the campaigns of two other senators and served as communications director for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, before taking the position of press secretary of John Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign.^[4]

U.S. presidential election, 2004[link]

Early in the 2004 presidential campaign, Gibbs was the press secretary of Democratic candidate Senator John Kerry. On November 11, 2003, Gibbs resigned "in reaction to the firing of Jim Jordan, abruptly let go by Kerry Sunday night."^[12] Gibbs was replaced by Stephanie Cutter, a former spokeswoman for Ted Kennedy. After leaving the Kerry campaign, Gibbs became spokesman for a 527 political group formed to stop the 2004 presidential campaign of Howard Dean which launched attack ads against Dean.^[13] Gibbs was criticized in February 2007, during the Obama Presidential campaign, by some left leaning bloggers.^[14]

Advisor to Barack Obama[link]

Gibbs joined Barack Obama's 2004 U.S. Senate campaign as communications director in mid-April 2004^[15] and remained with the senator through the first two years of Obama's term. Gibbs is credited with guiding Obama through those first years and molding his rise on the national scene. According to The New York Times, Gibbs advised Obama on politics, strategy and messaging, and spent more time with Obama than any other advisor.^[2]

U.S. presidential election, 2008[link]

Barack Obama at a rally in Hartford, CT on February 4, 2008

The appointment of Gibbs by Obama to the post of communications chief was met with mild controversy by some critics in the Democratic National Committee, who cited Gibbs' role in the aggressive campaign tactics used to block the nomination of Howard Dean in the 2004 race. Obama, however, referred to Gibbs as his "one-person Southern focus group" and welcomed him as part of his close-knit team that included strategist David Axelrod, campaign director David Plouffe, and research director Devorah Adler. In his communications role, Gibbs became known as "the enforcer" because of his aggressive rapid-response methods for countering disinformation tactics from opponents. Gibbs assumed responsibility for "shaping the campaign message, responding to the 24/7 news cycle, schmoozing with the press and fighting back when he disagree[d] with its reporting."^[16] As the chief intermediary between the Obama campaign and the press, Gibbs sought to counter the Republican National Committee's opposition research tactics against Obama in early 2007.^[17]

Gibbs adopted a policy of rapid response to claims by conservative news outlets that questioned Obama's religious upbringing. In response to the "Obama is a Muslim" meme suggested by these claims, Gibbs disseminated information to other news networks that Obama is not nor has ever been Muslim. At the time, Gibbs said, "These malicious, irresponsible charges are precisely the kind of politics the American people have grown tired of."^[18]

After comments by George W. Bush to the Israeli Knesset questioning Obama's foreign policy platform's focus on international diplomacy, Gibbs responded, calling Bush's comments "astonishing" and "an unprecedented attack on foreign soil." Gibbs argued that Bush's policy amounted to "cowboy diplomacy" that had been discounted by Bush's own Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, and quoted with Gates' own words: "We need to figure out a way to develop some leverage ... and then sit down and talk...if there is going to be a discussion, then they need something, too. We can't go to a discussion and be completely the demander, with them not feeling that they need anything from us."^[19]

He was widely blamed by news media executives for "holding hostage" reporters, while Obama and Hillary Clinton met for the first time after a heavily-contested Democratic primary season. He countered back, “It wasn't an attempt to deceive in any way ... It was just private meetings.”^[17]

White House Press Secretary[link]

Obama and Gibbs in the conference room of Air Force One in July 2009.

On November 22, 2008, it was announced by the Obama Transition Team that Gibbs would be the White House Press Secretary for the Obama administration.^[5] He assumed the role of press secretary on January 20, 2009, and gave his first official briefing on January 22.

In an interview with The Hill, Gibbs derided the “professional left” and "liberals," who “wouldn’t be satisfied if Dennis Kucinich was president.” He said that people who compare Obama's policies to George W. Bush's "ought to be drug tested.” ^[20]

Personal life[link]

Gibbs is married to Mary Catherine Gibbs, an attorney, and lives in Alexandria, Virginia with their son, Ethan.^[16] His parents live in Apex, North Carolina, where his mother Nancy is acquisitions director for the libraries at Duke University.^[9] Gibbs is a college football fan, particularly of the Auburn Tigers.^[2]

References[link]