White House Press Secretary

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The White House Press Secretary is a senior White House official with a rank one step below Presidential Cabinet level. The Press Secretary is the primary spokesperson for the Administration. The current Press Secretary is Dana Perino.

In August 2006, President George W. Bush hosted seven White House Press Secretaries, before the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room underwent renovation: Joe Lockhart, Dee Dee Myers, Marlin Fitzwater, Tony Snow, Ron Nessen, and James Brady with his wife Sarah Brady.

[edit] Responsibilities

Responsibilities center on collecting information about what is happening inside the Administration and around the world, and getting that information to the media in a timely and accurate fashion. The information includes things like a summary of the President's schedule for the day, whom the President has seen, called or had interactions with, and the official position of the Administration on the news of the day. This position pays around 170,000 dollars per year.^{[citation needed]}

The Press Secretary traditionally also fields questions from the White House Press Corps in briefings and press conferences, which are generally televised, and "press gaggles", which are on-the-record briefings without video recording, though transcripts are usually made available.

The position of White House Press Secretary has often been filled by individuals from news media backgrounds:

Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed Stephen T. Early, a United Press International reporter and Associated Press correspondent
Harry S Truman appointed J. Leonard Reinsch, a radio man; Jonathan W. Daniels, a newspaper man who was in the Franklin Roosevelt Administration in multiple agencies and boards just prior to becoming White House Press Secretary; Charles Griffith Ross, a newspaper man who received the Pulitzer Prize in 1932; Early; Joseph Short, a newspaper man; and Roger Tubby, a reporter and editor turned Democratic National Committee spokesman before becoming White House Press Secretary
Dwight D. Eisenhower appointed James C. Hagerty, a New York Times reporter
John F. Kennedy appointed Pierre Salinger, a reporter and editor
Lyndon B. Johnson appointed George Christian, a reporter for International News Service
Gerald Ford appointed newspaper veteran Jerald terHorst and NBC News correspondent Ron Nessen to the post
Ronald Reagan appointed Larry Speakes, a newspaper man, and Marlin Fitzwater, a newspaper man
George H.W. Bush retained Fitzwater
George W. Bush appointed Fox News anchor Tony Snow, who also had extensive experience in the fields of print and radio journalism

[edit] List of Press Secretaries

Year(s)	Press Secretary	President
1929–1930	George Akerson	Herbert Hoover
1930–1933	Ted Joslin	Herbert Hoover
1933–1945	Stephen Early	Franklin Roosevelt
1945	J. Leonard Reinsch
1945	Jonathan Daniels
1945	Jonathan Daniels	Harry Truman
1945–1950	Charlie Ross
1950	Stephen Early
1950–1952	Joseph Short
1952–1953	Roger Tubby
1953–1961	James Hagerty	Dwight Eisenhower
1961–1964	Pierre Salinger	John Kennedy
1961–1964	Pierre Salinger	Lyndon Johnson
1964–1965	George Reedy
1965–1966	Bill Moyers
1966–1969	George Christian
1969–1974	Ron Ziegler	Richard Nixon
1974	Jerald terHorst	Gerald Ford
1974–1977	Ron Nessen	Gerald Ford
1977–1981	Jody Powell	Jimmy Carter
1981–1989	James Brady ¹	Ronald Reagan
1981–1987	Larry Speakes ²
1987–1989	Marlin Fitzwater ²
1989–1993	Marlin Fitzwater	George H.W. Bush
1993–1994	Dee Dee Myers ³	Bill Clinton
1993	George Stephanopoulos ⁴
1994–1998	Mike McCurry
1998–2000	Joe Lockhart
2000–2001	Jake Siewert
2001–2003	Ari Fleischer	George W. Bush
2003–2006	Scott McClellan
2006–2007	Tony Snow
2007–Present	Dana Perino
¹ Did not brief the press after wounded in the Reagan assassination attempt. ² De-facto Press Secretary (as White House Deputy Press Secretary). ³ Did not brief the press while Stephanopoulos was Communications Director. ⁴ De-facto Press Secretary (as White House Communications Director).