Piñata Leavitte

Being a Press Secretary is far more important within a government, regardless of the country (even a dictatorship needs a sharp one to withhold key information that needs to remain confidential or become public).

The CV of this high-level profile must be quite impressive in terms of linguistics and different forms of communication, oral and written. She or he must have a profound knowledge of how to deal with the press and media relations; how to brief the president, the cabinet, congressmen and women, and so forth.

Let's take a quick example of the Press Secretary of the United Mighty States of 'Merica. Within its functions, you'll find:

• Providing information quite often in both informal and formal settings;

• As said, briefing the president on media issues, and preparing him (the actual president is a he, but who ever knows nowadays) to handle interviews;

• Scheduling administration officials for interviews;

• Persuading on topics of communication relevance, whatever this means…

Anyway, there are more functions to list, but this is not a recipe.

Now, imagine all this pressure on our immaculate spokesperson when critical journalists come to ask poking and provocative questions about this and that topic. And then, you hear responses like, “your mom did." You might start having some questions and judgments about the professional behavior of our press secretary, don't you?

This is the same person that briefs the president and government. Thus, one can think that in all meetings, if under too much pressure, she says, “well you only need to reply, your mom did at every question to deflect efficiently.”

This is communication 101 of the first or second power in the world. Take notes!