Ms. Card has been a professional writer for more than a decade and has spent her career in Washington, D.C, translating public policy jargon and government-speak into compelling English.
For five years, Jean was the principal, on-staff writer for the nation’s most powerful business lobby (the National Federation of Independent Business), penning everything from the publications used by NFIB’s lobbying team to the marketing materials utilized by their sales force. Jean ghost-wrote NFIB’s self-syndicated opinion column, “Small Business Focus” (today called “The Voice of Small Business”), for most of her tenure with the organization. During her time at NFIB, Jean developed an advanced understanding of heath care, tax and labor policy.
In 2001, Jean joined the Bush administration as a cabinet-level speechwriter. Over the next six years she wrote speeches and opinion columns for the Secretary of Labor, the Secretary of the Treasury and the Attorney General. Her work included major policy speeches on a wide variety issues, from women’s entrepreneurship, economic security and entitlement reform to law enforcement and the war on terrorism.
Following her government service, Jean spent a year at a top strategic communications firm providing advice and strategy for clients ranging from a major bank in crisis to a software company promoting its philanthropic work.
Today, Jean is using her significant experience to help her clients communicate their most vital messages to their most important audiences.
Jean is a graduate of Middlebury College in Middlebury, Vermont and has also studied at the University of Kent at Canterbury in the U.K.
When the GAO report is mentioned in media coverage, reporters are tending to quote other people (on the GE/Rolls-Royce side) who are referencing the report. Why on earth aren’t reporters reading the report and quoting directly from it themselves? They have an unbiased, authoritative source at their fingertips! Is this lazy journalism? Or a sign that the PR and lobbying campaigns funded by Pratt and Whitney, GE and Rolls Royce are much more interesting to reporters than facts and studies?
As is far too common in public-policy journalism, the coverage in this case seems to focus less on the engine issue and more on the conflict between the warring parties. A piece on the ABC News website (“The Blotter”), for example, recently read: “ABC News chief investigative reporter Brian Ross will have more on the allegations of wasteful spending tonight in a report on World News with Diane Sawyer.”
Coverage of allegations, of a fight, of name-calling, is more salacious than coverage of a boring old GAO report, right? But is it responsible journalism?
Facts may not be as interesting as name-calling, but they are what the public deserves to know.
Ms. Card is a freelance writer living in Alexandria, Va. She is a former cabinet-level speechwriter and has served in the U.S. departments of Labor, Treasury and Justice.
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