March 29, 2024

Jenna Bush Hager Is Happy Reporting for ‘Today’

As the cameras rolled, Ms. Hager fired off emotional questions about his violent childhood and his adoptive family. When the filming ended, Ms. Hager leaned across the couch and gave Mr. TerKeurst a high five.

“You’re answering too perfectly,” Ms. Hager said. “That was awesome.”

Ms. Hager, the daughter and granddaughter of former presidents who once stuck out her tongue at members of the news media and whose name used to be the punch line for late-night television show jokes about her underage-drinking citations, has officially become a member of the press.

Ms. Hager has emerged as one of the few bright spots in an otherwise difficult year for “Today,” on which she has often commented on the soft side of politics and been able to burnish her own family’s reputation. Unlike other correspondents, she is frequently invited to the show’s couch, where she shows off her sometimes offbeat sensibility. (She recently confessed on air that she dreamed that her unborn child was a cat.)

And she has expanded into print and social media. She wrote a young adult novel, “Ana’s Story: A Journey of Hope,” and in November she became an editor at large at Southern Living magazine, sharing holiday decorating tips. “People really respond to her because she is so real and she is so approachable,” said Lindsay Bierman, Southern Living’s editor.

Ms. Hager runs a blog called The Novo Project that links to her Southern Living posts. She is a regular presence on Twitter, posting snapshots of her cat; assuring her mother, Laura Bush, that she is not skiing while pregnant; and talking about the fatherhood fears of her husband, Henry, who works for a private equity firm. (Comments she has made on “Today” indicate that she’s in her ninth month.)

“If you had asked me in college, was I going to do the job I’m doing now, I would say, ‘Absolutely not,’ ” Ms. Hager acknowledged as she sat on the deck of the TerKeurst home on a warm early spring afternoon, nibbling on a lunch of Mexican food. “Because I’ve been interviewed so much and because I was the subject, I think I have a sensitivity.”

(Mr. TerKeurst, who noted that Ms. Hager invited him to feel a kick from her baby, said: “I knew who George Bush was, but I didn’t know who Jenna Bush was. She’s more down to earth than I thought she would be.”)

While fame may have given Ms. Hager that sensitivity, it has also given her a huge leg up in starting at the top of the ranks of daytime television. While Ms. Hager’s original arrangement with “Today” mirrors those of other political daughters turned TV contributors, like Chelsea Clinton (on NBC) and Meghan McCain (on MSNBC), she has so far appeared more often than the others, producing several segments a month.

Like other political offspring, Ms. Hager has been able to use her media job to recast the image of her immediate and extended family.

Her “Ganny,” Barbara Bush, is presented as a mother who lost a daughter, Robin, to illness at the age of 3. Her “Gampy,” George H. W. Bush, is a prolific letter writer who sent love notes to his wife. Her father, George W. Bush, is her cat sitter, an impatiently expectant grandfather and a baby nursery decorator. (He’s contributed a portrait of her cat that he painted.) Her Southern Living reports present her mother as the consummate entertaining expert, and former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as a football fan.

Matt Lauer, the “Today” host, interviewed her on election night about the pressures political families face. In December she produced a special about holidays at the White House.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/13/arts/television/jenna-bush-hager-is-happy-reporting-for-today.html?partner=rss&emc=rss