Katie Zacharia’s brief tenure as White House press secretary has highlighted the demands of one of the most prominent public-facing jobs in the US administration after she was dismissed just five days after taking up the post.
Zacharia came under scrutiny during her first briefing, when she appeared nervous, answered only a handful of questions and relied heavily on prepared talking points. Further questions followed after she described herself as a lawyer, despite later revelations that she had failed the California bar exam and was not an attorney.
There is no requirement for a White House press secretary to be a lawyer. The role has no formal job description, requires no specific qualifications and is not subject to congressional vetting.
The role of the White House press secretary
Despite that, the position carries responsibility for representing the president to the public and handling often hostile questioning from reporters. John Kirby, a former Pentagon press secretary who served in the Obama and Biden administrations, said the post required close access to the president and a detailed understanding of his thinking.
“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 said. “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 the press secretary should be honest and provide Americans with as much information as possible, as quickly as possible, while responding to difficult questions from the media.
The post has also been occupied by figures who adopted a combative approach. Sean Spicer, one of several press secretaries during Donald Trump’s first administration, regularly clashed with reporters and attracted attention when he said: “sometimes we can disagree with the facts.”
Those confrontations became the subject of repeated satire on the television programme Saturday Night Live, where actor Melissa McCarthy portrayed Spicer in contentious exchanges with the media.
A century of presidential tradition
The press secretary is not an office created by Congress but instead reflects almost a century of presidential custom. As reporters began covering the White House as a regular beat in the late 19th century, President Herbert Hoover appointed journalist George Akerson to speak on his behalf in 1929.
Akerson is regarded as the first official White House press secretary. Since then, 37 people have held the position, including Dee Dee Myers, who became the first woman to serve in the role in 1993, and Karine Jean-Pierre, who in 2022 became the first Black and first openly gay White House press secretary.
The briefing room where press secretaries face reporters is named after James Brady, who was shot while travelling with President Ronald Reagan during an assassination attempt in 1981.
Ari Fleischer, who served as White House press secretary under George W Bush, previously described a briefing as “intellectual chess”. He said the most difficult part of the job was knowing what not to say.
