Emily Lenzner, Executive Director of Communications at ABC News for its DC-based shows, who spent eight months in 2007-2008 as editorial producer for This Week with George Stephanopoulos (for whom she also toiled inside the Clinton White House), has left ABC News for Anita Dunn's “strategic communications firm.” SKDKnickerbocker announced Monday she'll be a Managing Director with the firm led by Dunn, the Obama administration's Communications Director in 2009. SKDKnickerbocker's “About” page boasts:
We helped Barack Obama by being the only firm in America to do direct mail and television advertising for his 2008 presidential victory. We helped SEIU fight to stave off millions of dollars of healthcare cuts.
Their “Case Studies” page, which touts work for a bunch of liberal candidates, highlights “FAR-REACHING ROLE IN ELECTION: Obama for America.” That page trumpets: “No other firm had as far-reaching a role in President Obama's election...with Anita Dunn serving as one of the top officials of the campaign and the firm producing both television advertising and direct mail for the campaign.”
The firm's press release on Lenzner hailed her revolving door spins: “A Washington native, Lenzner’s career has spanned the worlds of politics and media from the Clinton White House and New York politics to broadcast news and the entertainment and digital media industries.”
Lenzner's revolving comes a month after Jennifer Loven, an 18-year AP veteran and the wire service's chief White House correspondent, decided to put her communications talents to work for The Glover Park Group, a DC-based “strategic communications firm” founded in 2001 by a bunch of Clinton and Gore staffers, most prominently Joe Lockhart, who found themselves unemployed after the 2000 election.
(Obama-media revolving door list: Complete list, now up to 17. Loven and Lenzner, however, are not on the list since neither worked in the Obama administration or campaign, though both are now working for firms advancing his agenda.)
Lenzner's resume, as recounted in the press release:
Emily Lenzner has spent most of her career in media and politics with an expertise in strategic communications and media affairs. Most recently Emily served as the Executive Director of Media Relations for ABC News in Washington, where she was responsible for all public relations and communications for This Week with Christiane Amanpour, Nightline, and ABC’s Washington Bureau. In this role, she managed all PR for Ms. Amanpour and previously Jake Tapper and George Stephanopoulos; Nightline’s current anchors and previously Ted Koppel; as well as ABC News’ political and DC-based on-air talent. Emily took a year off from ABC to run media relations for National Public Radio in Washington, where as the number two communications executive for the network, she established new procedures to make the company’s media relations efforts more streamlined and effective.
Emily returned to ABC In 2007 to serve as George Stephanopoulos’ editorial producer on This Week for eight months in 2007 and 2008 before returning to ABC’s communications department. Prior to her first tour at ABC, Emily was an account director at Fenton Communications in New York, where she managed clients, including off-shore wind power company BlueWaterWind and Russell Simmons and Andrew Cuomo’s partnership to repeal the Rockefeller Drug Laws. She was the press secretary for Tom Golisano during his 2002 campaign for New York Governor...
From 1995 to 1997, Emily was the associate producer for the News at Noon at KIRO TV in Seattle. Before that she served as a White House staff assistant to George Stephanopoulos, when he was senior advisor to President Bill Clinton...
In 2007, the MRC's Tim Graham tipped me, Lenzner married Peter Cherukuri, Vice President and general manager of Huffington Post's Washington, D.C. office.
