By Julia Parmley
In August 2007, Dana Perino was preparing to replace Tony Snow as White House press secretary for President George W. Bush. When Ms. Perino admitted to Mr. Snow her apprehensions about filling his shoes, he told her, “You are better at this than you think you are.”
“I didn’t really know what he meant at the time,” she says. “But two weeks later I was turning out my lights to go home and it hit me—I don’t have to try and be like him. I can just be me. From then on out, I felt more confident.”
Ms. Perino shared stories of her two-year stint as only the second female White House press secretary and tips on how to work—and deal— with media and public relations clients in GW’s Jack Morton Auditorium March 22. Ms. Perino’s appearance launched the Graduate School of Political Management’s (GSPM) 2010 Distinguished Speaker Series, hosted by Larry Parnell, associate professor and director of GSPM’s strategic public relations program.
A former spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Justice and deputy White House press secretary, Ms. Perino currently serves as the chief issues counselor at global public relations firm Burson-Marsteller and as a political commentator on Fox News. Last fall, President Obama nominated her to the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which oversees U.S. civilian international broadcasting.
At the event, Ms. Perino and Mr. Parnell discussed how the 24-hour news cycle forced Ms. Perino to be constantly informed on all national and international issues. One of the ways Ms. Perino says she made sure she was prepared every day was to read newspapers. Saying she was on “a bit of a crusade to get people to read the hard copy paper,” Ms. Perino told the audience it is the “most important thing we do as public relations professionals.”
“At the White House, I read five daily newspapers--USA Today, The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Times,” she says. “Every single day, I guarantee I know more about what’s going on than anyone else because I read the hard copy. I do think I served my president, my colleagues and now my current private sector clients much better because I read everything.”
That drive to be informed came from nights growing up in Colorado, where Ms. Perino’s dad insisted she read The Rocky Mountain News and The Denver Post in preparation for a discussion before he got home. “It wasn’t until years later that I realized he was playing devil’s advocate a lot of the time--pushing me, asking me questions and [helping me develop] critical thinking skills, [asking me] why did I think this or that,” she says. “I do believe that interaction with my dad helped me to succeed in politics as a woman in the White House, where it’s dominated by men.”
Calling every day at the White House “tough but joyous,” Ms. Perino shared two of her most unforgettable memories as press secretary. In January 2009, Ms. Perino, along with President Bush and then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, visited a U.S. Navy SEALs training center in Virginia.
“I say that was one of my favorite days, because I’ve never forgotten about it,” says Ms. Perino. “It’s very humbling to meet members of our military. They volunteer to do what they do, [while] knowing that they were sacrificing probably everything.”
The second was Ms. Perino’s first visit to Bethesda Naval Hospital, where she accompanied President Bush to award a Purple Heart to a U.S. solider who was in a coma following a brain injury in Iraq two weeks prior. The soldier’s parents, wife and five-year-old son were on hand to witness the ceremony. Ms. Perino says the boy asked President Bush what a Purple Heart was, and President Bush explained it was an award for his father, telling the boy, “He’s really brave and he loves his country. He loves you too, and I’m so proud of him and I hope you’ll always be proud of him too.”
“Right then, the solider opened his eyes,” says Ms. Perino. “The president held the soldier’s face in his hands, and was crying, and asked for the award to be read again. And the solider blinked in recognition.”
To most effectively deal with an often insatiable press, Ms. Perino says she would always be honest with what she did and did not know. “The first and foremost thing is that you never lie,” she says. “I used to have reporters who would dig up classified information and in the briefing they’d try to ‘get me.’ I’d never say ‘that’s not true’ but I might say ‘that’s not something I can discuss.’”
Ms. Perino says her total access to information—including every secure media conference with Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai and Prime Minister of Iraq Nouri al-Maliki—also helped her earn their respect.
“The president let me sit in on those meetings so…when something happened in the middle of the night, I knew what his principles were. I knew what had happened,” she says. “The great thing for me is that I had so much credibility with the press because they knew that I had been in the room. They didn’t have to go around me to get the information.”
During her time at the White House, Ms. Perino says she was able to develop both a professional and personal relationship with President Bush and was able to “speak honestly” with him regarding public relations issues. But at the end of the day only one opinion matters, and Ms. Perino says it was not her own.
“Your job as a professional is to articulate what the decision is and how the decision was made,” she says. “As a press secretary, as soon as you believe it matters what you think, you’re not doing a service to your president or your country.”