White House press secretary has no job description or required qualifications

Zacharia fired five days into the role after failing California’s bar exam

The White House press secretary is one of the most important public-facing jobs in any presidential administration, even though the role carries no job description, no required qualifications and no vetting by Congress, according to NPR. The firing last week of Katie Zacharia, five days into her tenure, marked the latest illustration of how informal the position remains.

NPR reported that Zacharia described herself as a lawyer. Once reporters established that she had failed the California bar exam and was not therefore an attorney, the scrutiny intensified. Press secretaries are not required to be attorneys, NPR noted, but they do have to be able to hold their own with reporters.

Zacharia’s first two days on the job had already drawn scrutiny. NPR’s account reported she was visibly nervous during her first briefing, took only a handful of questions from reporters and largely stuck to a script of talking points. Five days after starting, she was out.

Former Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby, who served during both the Obama and Biden administrations, told NPR’s Ayesha Roscoe on Weekend Edition Sunday that the job requires both proximity to the president and accountability to citizens. “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.” The core duty, Kirby added, is to “be honest” and tell Americans as much and as quickly as possible while also taking tough questions from the press.

Other recent occupants have set different tones. Sean Spicer, one of several White House press secretaries during Donald Trump’s first administration, regularly sparred with members of the media, according to NPR. He gained notoriety when challenged about the size of the crowds at Trump’s inauguration, telling reporters “sometimes we can disagree with the facts.” NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” parodied the exchanges in sketches starring Melissa McCarthy, with lines including “I came out here to punch you in the face.”

The role itself exists by nearly a century of presidential custom rather than by statute. 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, NPR reported, 37 people have held the role.

Some made history as barriers broke. In 1993, Dee Dee Myers became the first woman to serve as White House press secretary. In 2022, Karine Jean-Pierre became the first Black person and the first openly gay person to hold the post.

The job has also carried physical risk. While traveling with then-President Ronald Reagan in 1981, White House press secretary James Brady was shot during an assassination attempt on the president, according to NPR. The briefing room where today’s press secretaries stand behind the podium and take questions is named for Brady.

Ari Fleischer, who served as President George W. Bush’s press secretary, described the role to NPR as “intellectual chess.” The hardest part of the job, he said, is knowing what not to say.