ABSTRACT
The job of the White House communications staff is to "ensure positive news coverage and to mitigate the harm of negative stories through what is generally referred to as 'spin control'." From the outside, it may look like having a communications staff with a director and a press secretary and his or her staffs means considerable duplication. The pressure on the Director on Communications is intense. The communications director deals with the long-term strategy of providing information to the entire range of media and coordinating the media outreach beyond the White House press corps. Serving as a presidential press secretary is a high-pressure and high-visibility job. The revolving door entrances and exits of White House press secretaries should not generate too much pity for those forced to leave. A significant amount of staff time is spent "talking to the press, plotting press strategy, or reviewing how their latest efforts had played in the press.".
