Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign has hired two new media operatives. She has added Karen Finney as Strategic Communications Adviser and Senior Spokesperson and Oren Shur as Director of Paid Media.
Clinton is expected to announce a definitive run later this month. Some reports indicate a run could come as early as this week. Once this happens, her campaign team will be officially announced. CNN reported that the campaign’s digital team is working in a kitchen. All of the operatives are currently volunteers with promised salaries.
Clinton has had a strained relationship with the media. Her campaign often viewed the media as having a pro-Obama bias in the 2008 presidential election. Earlier than that, Clinton felt the media too easily repeated Republican spin. However, she has said that she hitting the reset button on the relationship. “My relationship with the press has been at times, shall we say, complicated, I’m all about new beginnings, a new grandchild, a new hairstyle, a new email account, a new relationship with the press.” Clinton said as the keynote speaker for an event that gave out awards to political reporters.
Shur will be in charge of TV, mail, radio, and digital advertising. He has served under Missouri Governor, Jay Nixon, who won his 2012 re-election race. Shur had also served as Director of the Democratic Governors Association Independent Expenditures for the 2014 election cycle.
Finney has a history with Clinton. She served as Deputy Press Secretary to Clinton when she was First Lady. Then, she served as a traveling press secretary on Hillary Clinton’s 2000 Senate campaign. Finally, she worked as Communications Director at the Democratic National Committee from 2005-2009.
Finney also worked as a host on MSNBC. She hosted Disrupt on the weekends, however the show suffered from low ratings and was cancelled last year. She also frequently appeared as a Democratic strategist at CNN after the show’s cancellation.