Is former White House Press Secretary Jay Carney talking to Apple about becoming its new head of PR? That’s the question still circulating around Silicon Valley after a pair of conflicting reports came out earlier this week.
According to a friend of Carney’s who spoke anonymously to Bloomberg, Carney has indeed talked to Apple about potentially filling the recently vacated position.
We still don’t know beyond a shadow of a doubt if it’s true, as Apple (of course) isn’t commenting and neither is Carney. “I’m talking to a lot of different people about a variety of potential opportunities,” he said in a statement. Carney was recently touring many big companies in Silicon Valley, and with no head of PR at the moment, Apple would likely be near the top of his list to visit.
Re/code was the first to report that Carney’s name was being tossed around at Apple. But a rebuttal from The Loop’s Jim Dalrymple shot down the rumor with the curious detail that, “Tim Cook has never even met Jay Carney.”
It’s a weird instance of two publications that are usually well-sourced on Apple starkly disagreeing. Bloomberg chiming in now adds more weight to Re/code’s original report.
Carney recently stepped down after serving as Press Secretary for the Obama Administration for three years. Before that, he was the communications director for Vice President Joe Biden and the Washington bureau chief for Time Magazine. As someone with experience on both sides of the press room and lots of relationships in Washington, he could be a key asset for Apple as it looks to put on a friendlier PR face going forward.
