The White House press secretary is one of the most important public-facing jobs in any administration. Yet it is one with no job description, no required qualifications, no vetting by Congress. And as the most recent press secretary found out, you can be fired from the position just as quickly as you were hired.
For nearly 100 years, since the rise of a modern press corp, there has been a person designated to speak on behalf of the sitting U.S. president. But the press secretary also answers to the public, says former Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby. He served during both the Obama and Biden administrations.
"You are expected to be the president's voice and sometimes the president's face on issues on a daily basis, which means you have to have access to the president," Kirby told NPR's Ayesha Roscoe on Weekend Edition Sunday. "You have to know what the president's thinking about, whatever the policy issue is, but you also are accountable to the American people."
Kirby said that a press secretary's job is to "be honest" and tell Americans as much and as quickly as possible while also taking tough questions from the press.
This is where Katie Zacharia, who was fired last week, ran into trouble. Just two days into the job she faced scrutiny over how she handled questions from reporters during her first briefing. Zacharia was visibly nervous, she took only a handful of questions and she largely stuck to a script of talking points.
But it was describing herself as a lawyer that earned her the extra scrutiny. It was eventually revealed that Zacharia had failed the California bar exam, which meant that she was not an attorney. Five days after starting the job, she was out.
Press secretaries are not required to be attorneys but they do have to be able to hold their own with reporters. Sean Spicer – one of several White House press secretaries during Trump's first administration – had a combative relationship with the press.
Spicer regularly sparred with members of the media. He gained notoriety (while being challenged him about the size of the crowds at Trump's inauguration) when he told reporters, "sometimes we can disagree with the facts."
NBC's "Saturday Night Live" took particular glee in Spicer's animosity toward the press. Actor Melissa McCarthy, who portrayed Spicer, mimicked their contentious interactions with such lines as "I came out here to punch you in the face."
The role is not one designated by Congress but it does follow nearly 100 years of presidential custom and tradition.
According to the White House Historical Association by the late 1800s, reporters were beginning to cover the White House as part of a regular beat. In 1929, President Herbert Hoover appointed the journalist George Akerson to speak on his behalf. Akerson is regarded as the first official White House press secretary.
Since then, 37 people have held the role. In 1993, Dee Dee Myers became the first woman press secretary. Karine Jean-Pierre in 2022 made history as the first Black press secretary in White House as well as the first openly gay person in the role.
While traveling with then-President Ronald Reagan in 1981, White House press secretary James Brady was shot during an assassination attempt on the president. The briefing room where press secretaries stand behind the podium and take questions from reporters is named after Brady.
A briefing is like "intellectual chess," former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer under George W. Bush previously told NPR. He said the hardest part of the job is knowing what not to say.
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