The White House will have a new public face, after it was announced that former Time magazine journalist Jay Carney would take over as the Obama administration's press secretary within the next few weeks.
Currently serving as communications director for vice president Joe Biden, Carney is an experienced Washington journalist whose new job will put him in the firing line defending the administration from his former colleagues.
A Yale graduate, Carney worked briefly for the Miami Herald before moving to Time in 1989. He remained at the weekly news magazine for 20 years, with stints in Moscow, and later becoming Time's Washington DC bureau chief. He left the magazine at the end of 2008 to join Biden's staff.
Carney replaces Robert Gibbs, who has served as Obama's press spokesman since the 2008 primaries and presidential election, and as the White House press secretary since Obama took office.
Carney's wife is Claire Shipman, senior national correspondent for ABC's news programme Good Morning America.
The announcement was the most noteworthy of a series of moves as Obama's new chief of staff, Bill Daley, completed a minor reshuffle of staff posts within the corridors of the West Wing.
Alyssa Mastromonaco, Obama's director of scheduling and advance work, was promoted to White House deputy chief of staff for operations, while health reform director Nancy-Ann DeParle becomes deputy chief of staff for policy.
The changes come as Obama and his staff gear up for the 2012 election campaign. At the end of the week one of his most senior advisors, David Axelrod, leaves the White House for the nascent Obama campaign's Chicago headquarters.
