Washington - Jay Carney, a communications director for Vice-President Joe Biden and former Time Magazine reporter, will become the new top White House spokesperson, Robert Gibbs, the current holder of the job, said on Thursday.
Gibbs, a confidante of President Barack Obama, had previously announced he would be leaving the White House to become an outside adviser for Obama's 2012 re-election campaign.
Gibbs said in an email that a handover would take place in the next few weeks.
Other staff changes are also under way, including two new deputy chiefs of staff and a new legislative director for Obama, who started a staff shakeup after Democrats were pummelled in the 2010 congressional elections.
Carney is a well-known fixture in Washington, having covered the White House, politics and Congress for years for Time Magazine after a stint in Moscow.
He is married to ABC News correspondent Claire Shipman, also a former White House correspondent.
Carney has been Biden's communications director since 2009 and was instrumental in helping improve the image of the loquacious vice president, who has a reputation for verbal gaffes.
Obama reached outside his immediate communications team to pick Carney. Carney has spent less time with the president than most of the other contenders for the job, including deputy press secretaries Bill Burton and Josh Earnest and deputy communications director Jen Psaki. - Reuters