Veteran WH reporters Get Candid On Press Secretary Role

Reuters photo

In the first question Karine Jean-Pierre took as she began her White House press secretary tenure on Monday, a reporter asked how she viewed her job, according to Fox News Digital.

"Do you view your primary role here as speaking for the president and promoting his interests?" Zeke Miller of the Associated Press asked. "Or are you committed to providing the unvarnished truth to the American people so that they know what their government is doing on their behalf?"

"I actually think that’s hand in hand," she said. "I don’t think there’s – that there is any separation to that."

The question got to the heart of what a press secretary is supposed to be and how they handle the inherent tensions of the job; on one hand, they serve at the pleasure of the president and are supposed to make the White House look good, but they also are expected to disseminate accurate information, work with reporters on their stories, and serve as a conduit between the press and the commander-in-chief.

How they manage those duties that inevitably come into conflict determine how effective they are in that role. Thirty-four others have filled the public-facing job before Jean-Pierre, the first Black and openly gay individual to hold the post.

"Your salary is paid by taxpayers," a former White House correspondent told Fox News Digital. "You are the spokesperson for the president, but you are also the chief spokesperson for the executive branch of the U.S. government. It’s not a job that is solely spin and political. You have a responsibility to provide reliable and factual information on the activities of the U.S. government."

Karine Jean-Pierre (AP)

"You’re not simply there to spin for the president. You’re there to represent the interest of the press corps," the former correspondent said.

Fox News political analyst Brit Hume, who was ABC News chief White House correspondent from 1989 to 1996, pointed to Dee Dee Myers under Clinton and Marlin Fitzwater under George H. W. Bush as two examples who hit those marks well.

Jean-Pierre got off to a rocky start in the view of some in the briefing room on Monday, as she stumbled over a question about inflation by calling for corporations to pay their fair share of taxes, and said she had no timeline for resolving the agonizing baby formula shortage gripping the country.

Her predecessor Jen Psaki received high marks in some corners for calling on a variety of outlets, working well with reporters and reliably holding briefings – according to the White House Transition Project, she held 224 over about 16 months, more than the 205 combined over all four years of the Trump White House. But she had her share of tense moments and had to sell spin like blaming Vladimir Putin for inflation, passed judgment on the false "whipping of migrants" narrative at the border, and ripped into critics of the widely panned Disinformation Governance Board that the Biden administration mothballed this week.

Psaki was popular enough with a left-leaning press corps that a war broke out for her services from major outlets like CNN and MSNBC once she left the White House; she's expected to join MSNBC in the coming months. 

"When you heard from Jen Psaki, you did not get the feeling she was speaking for Biden," another White House correspondent told Fox News Digital. "She was part of a team actively making as little news and answering the least amount of questions possible. Jen Psaki successfully leveraged the job into a sweet MSNBC news gig, but she did more to promote herself than promote the president."