THE JOB OF A PRESS OFFICER

• Roles of the Press Spokesperson
• Establishing the Press Officer Job
• Authority and Coordination
• Relationships With Other Press Offices
• A Credible Spokesperson

To be an effective spokesperson, the chief press officer or press secretary should have a close relationship, one of mutual respect, with the government official for whom he or she works, whether prime minister, president, minister, or agency head. The spokesperson should be familiar with the official's beliefs and should have direct access to him or her. The spokesperson should be able to walk into meetings and interrupt the official with pressing news without going through a scheduler or other aide. While this flexibility can disturb an orderly schedule, it results in a government that can respond quickly to media issues.

The press officer also should have a role in decision-making so that those formulating policy will understand the public relations ramifications of proposed actions. If, as spokesperson, the press officer has not participated in developing policy, he or she will have difficulty understanding the context of the policies and explaining it to the media.

"It is very important to have the communicator as part of the strategy team," says the NAGC's Joni Inman. "If a government official is planning on taking an action, you need to know how it will be perceived. It is better to have the communicator at the table, engaged in the discussion in the early formative stages, than to have to play catch up or be blindsided by negative public reaction because the communicator, the person with the sense of public sentiments, wasn't there."

Roles of the Press Spokesperson

According to presidential scholar Stephen Hess, on the federal level in the United States, responding to press questions takes up 50 percent of a typical press spokesperson's time, keeping informed and working on agency business 25 percent, and initiating materials and events 25 percent.

But a closer look at these functions suggests that a press officer's job can be broken down into many roles:

• Serving as the government spokesperson who conducts regular or special briefings.
• Managing the day-to-day activities of the press office.
  Assisting in developing government policies and in developing strategies to convey them to the media and the public.
• Planning and managing media campaigns to put out a consistent long-term message.
• Handling press inquiries.
• Setting up interviews and briefings for the press with government officials.
• Advising government officials and staff on press relations and potential media reaction to proposed policies.
• Overseeing speech writing, or at least reviewing speeches and their messages.
• Staging events such as news conferences.
• Preparing news releases, fact sheets, and other materials.
• Serving as a liaison with or supervisor of other government press offices.
• Arranging transportation and hotel accommodations for the traveling press.
• Issuing press credentials.
• Supervising agency publications internally and externally.
• Evaluating, after the fact, whether an event had its wanted effect and determining how to do better next time.

Establishing the Press Officer Job

In establishing the position of spokesperson, the first responsibility lies with the government official whom he or she will represent. That official must determine with the spokesperson how the press office will be organized and what its responsibilities will be. In doing this, the official has to make three key decisions:

• How available does he or she wish to be to the press?
• What will be the spokesperson's relationship with the rest of the official's staff?
• What will be the relationship between the press department and other ministries and departments? This is especially critical if the official is head of the government or of a ministry with subsections.

The government official also has to consider more detailed issues:

• How often will he or she be interviewed?
• How often will he or she conduct press conferences?
• May the spokesperson speak on his/her behalf? Or will only the government official do press briefings?

In the best of circumstances, the government official is readily accessible to the press, does frequent press conferences, and also has a spokesperson who can speak on his or her behalf. At the White House, for example, the press secretary holds a daily televised press briefing but steps aside when the president appears to address the press in person.

"To make the job work, the press secretary has to be accessible to the press, has to be well informed, and has to believe in the press's function in a democracy," says Dee Dee Myers, former press secretary to President Bill Clinton. "You can't have a democracy without a free press, and even though the press can seem intrusive at times, it is essential. A press secretary needs to understand the mission of the press and work with it."

Authority and Coordination

The authority the press officer has with the rest of the government official's top staff is also important. Among the issues are:

• Is the press officer the initial point of contact with the press, and does he or she have authority over the staff's relationships with the press?
• Are other offices authorized to answer questions, other than routine queries, without first consulting with the press office? For example, if a reporter calls the scheduling office with a simple scheduling question, such as the time of an event, should it be routed to the press office or can the scheduler answer it?
• Who needs to review the press office's news releases, speeches, and policy statements?
• Must other top-level staff, such as the chief of staff for the office, have sign-off authority on these public statements?
• Will the spokesperson have access to the top-level staff in the office?

In one recent case, a novice U.S. state governor created chaos by ignoring the need for coordination in his office. His chief of staff would give one message on the governor's goals to the press, the chief of policy another, and the press secretary yet a third. The media reported on the resulting chaos, and the governor's public approval ratings dropped precipitously. It was only when the press operation became integrated with the rest of the staff that a coherent message developed, press coverage improved, and the public began to support the governor's programs.

"Without coordination, the job can't get done well," says Susan King, former assistant secretary for public affairs for the U.S. Departments of Labor and of Housing and Urban Development. What will happen without it, King predicts, "is that a staff person will say, I represent my boss — a subsection head — and not the head of the organization. Everyone down the line has to feel they speak for the biggest boss, or there will be tension."

It is best when the press secretary coordinates all interaction the staff has with the media. At a minimum, a press secretary needs to know as soon as possible whether or not a staff member has had any interaction with the press and what topics were discussed. If there are no clear procedures, an administration could respond with contradictory information, and the public would be left confused and ultimately mistrusting of the government.

For a government official and his or her press office, the rule should be: no surprises. Or at least as few as possible.

The "no surprises" rule is also of crucial importance in the relationship between the central government office and government departments, as well as between a ministry and its subsections. It is important to determine how cabinet-level activities fit into the overall government media relations program and what role the spokesperson plays. Much of the agenda of a government is carried out through cabinet offices and ministries, and ideally there is coordination among them. A key issue is the degree of control a central government official wants and can maintain over the public information efforts of cabinet-level agencies. The issue is the same for a ministry's direction over its subsections.

Coordination is key in most U.S. government press offices. In the U.S. Department of the Treasury, for example, the central public affairs office of the Secretary of the Treasury has a weekly telephone conference call with the public affairs offices of its bureaus by subject matter. One call covers law enforcement and involves the five U.S. Treasury enforcement bureaus; the second weekly call involves the Treasury's domestic finance bureaus.

Through these calls, the Treasury Department's central public affairs office can coordinate and monitor the key communications issues that will come up during the coming weeks. The department also has a rapid response system in place so that its bureaus' public affairs offices can alert the central public affairs office when a controversial issue arises. If an issue is political in nature, a Treasury bureau staffed by career public affairs officers would alert the Treasury Secretary's public affairs office, which is staffed by political appointees, for response.

Relationships With Other Press Offices

Among the issues to consider when setting up a central press office are:

• What will the relationship between the main press office and any subordinate public information offices be?
• How will information move between them? Will they have weekly conference calls or meetings? Will they routinely share schedules of their upcoming events?
• Should the overall press secretary have authority that extends to cabinet-level agencies?
• Who will hire the spokespersons in the ministries and agencies? Will it be the top government press official or each agency head? If the central press office does the hiring, the top government spokesperson has control over the messages delivered, but this can prove very awkward for the head of a ministry. In the best of circumstances, there is cooperation and coordination. In these cases, the agency press secretaries coordinate their efforts with the central spokesperson but have the authority to plan and execute events in their own areas.
• What news will the top government official announce on behalf of cabinet offices?
• How do the subordinate offices fit into the overall media strategy?
• What materials, such as press releases, interviews, and speaking engagements, need to be cleared by the central government press office before being distributed, and how is the review done?
• What upcoming events or situations might impede the message a government official wants to send out? What procedures have been set up to get information from the other agencies and ministries? Sharing schedules among departments, having regular meetings to discuss event calendars, and sharing messages on upcoming events can help.

In one example of everything gone wrong, a U.S. state governor's press secretary did not appreciate the importance of coordinating messages the day that three state events occurred simultaneously: a state cabinet official announced a program and received major press coverage; a second cabinet official announced a new project and received less coverage; the governor announced another program and received very little coverage. The press office of each cabinet official had made its own arrangements, even though the governor had ultimate authority. There had been no meetings among the press staffs and no coordination of event calendars, and the result was competing press announcements that diminished each other's impact.

Consequently, the governor's press secretary began having monthly meetings with the press secretaries of the governor's cabinet offices. Each week he received their calendars with their planned press announcements for the next month and had a staff member make a master calendar from them. When the press secretary found two major announcements planned for the same day, he requested that one be postponed. If the governor scheduled an announcement for a certain day, no other cabinet official could hold a big press event on that day. Media messages were coordinated, and the governor stopped competing with the cabinet for press attention.

At a minimum, a press secretary should be informed by subordinate press officers in advance of any potentially embarrassing problems or disclosures. In the best of circumstances, the agencies will give the top government official or minister the chance to announce the positive news, and they will announce the bad news.

A Credible Spokesperson

What characteristics make a good press secretary?

According to former presidential spokesperson Mike McCurry, press secretaries need "a sense of humor, enormous patience, an ability to speak and write quickly, and an uncompromising attitude about the truth.

"Credibility," he says, "is the single most important asset of the spokesperson."

In The Government/Press Connection, Stephen Hess writes that press officers say they need stamina, curiosity, a helpful nature, good memory, civility, coolness under pressure, an understanding of human psychology, and an ability to predict and handle logistical details. It also helps if a spokesperson learns facts quickly. He or she should be able to handle the unpredictable, manage many tasks simultaneously, deal with constant interruptions, and be quick to react. The spokesperson should be evenhanded with reporters — that is, not play favorites. Above all, the spokesperson should be a person of high personal ethics and integrity.

It is vital that the spokesperson maintain his or her credibility and that of the boss. To be effective, a press secretary must be believed by the press; he or she won't be believed if past answers have proven misleading. "The government media effort doesn't work when the spokesperson is not trusted by the media or is frozen out from the information flow within the government," says former press secretary Sheila Tate.

In recent years, the role of the spokesperson has become more and more difficult because of the rapidity with which news breaks and its 24-hour availability. Part of the job is knowing who should talk under what circumstances.

"Sometimes you have to strategize what message the people need to hear right now and who the best person is to deliver it," says NAGC's Joni Inman. As an example, she cites a triple homicide. "The message that the people need to hear," she says, "is that they are safe and that it will not happen to them. The most effective person to deliver this message would not be the public relations person but the police captain in uniform. In any particular event, you have to look at the most effective communicator."

Besides giving information, spokespersons should try to make reporters as comfortable as possible.

"Remember that the physical demands of reporting and the long hours make for cranky reporters," says Mike McCurry. "You should try to take care of reporters' basic needs. Make sure they have access to food and drink, that their physical working environment is conducive to compiling and filing their stories, and that the employees of the government press office are helpful."

In sum, the spokesperson's job requires balancing many relationships — with the government official he or she represents, with the rest of the top-level government staff, with the press, and with the permanent bureaucracy, particularly if he or she is a political appointee. The spokesperson must also be visible for the boss when that would be helpful and in the background when the boss has the press spotlight.

"The most important thing to remember," says former presidential spokesperson Dee Dee Myers, "is that even though the job can be aggravating, difficult, and frustrating at times, it is incumbent on government press offices to help the press get the story right. That goes to the core of what a democracy is.

"The system works best when it provides a great degree of openness for the press," Myers says. "Openness is not something to be afraid of."