Jenna Bush Hager joins ‘Today’ as on-air education correspondent

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Former first daughter Jenna Bush (now Jenna Bush Hager) has been hired as an on-air correspondent for Today. Her duties will include covering educational duties, and she’s expected to make a few appearances a month. Jenna graduated from the University of Texas – Austin in 2004. After graduation, she went to work as a teacher at Elsie Whitlow Stokes Community Freedom Public Charter School and took an internship with UNICEF’s Educational Policy Department in Panama. She published a book loosely based on her experiences in Panama called Ana’s Story – A Journey of Hope, published in 2007. Jenna was married last year at her parents’ Crawford ranch, and she and her husband moved to Baltimore. There is no word yet as to whether Jenna and her husband will be moving, or if Jenna plans to be a correspondent from Baltimore, or how all of that is going to work:

In what is surely not a case of stunt casting, the Today Show has decided the person most appropriate to be a correspondent on education issues is a daughter of former U.S. President George W. Bush.

The NBC morning chatfest announced over the weekend that it had hired Jenna Hager, better known to most people by her maiden name of Jenna Bush, to contribute on a monthly basis.

“It wasn’t something I’d always dreamed to do,” Jenna, 27, said of the announcement. “But I think one of the most important things in life is to be open-minded and to be open-minded for change.”

The former First Daughter, who now teaches at a Baltimore school, isn’t a complete stranger to the show, having made two previous appearances. She even co-hosted an hour of Today with her mother, Laura Bush, last year.

Says the show’s executive producer, Jim Bell, “I think she can handle it… she knows something about pressure and being under some scrutiny. When she came here for a handful of appearances, she knocked it out of the park.”

Jenna, who plans to make her first contribution early this fall, says her focus will be, “on what I’m passionate about because I think I’d do the best job on them – education, urban education, women and children’s issues and literacy.”

[From OK! Magazine]

For the first few years of her dad’s presidency, Jenna was known mostly as a good-time party girl, more interested in keggers than education. She did a lot of growing up over the course of the past few years, and I think she seems like a very well-adjusted, thoughtful young woman. While I doubt she would have gotten the Today job if her maiden name wasn’t Bush, I don’t think she’s a bad choice for the position. She’ll probably do very well.

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10 Responses to “Jenna Bush Hager joins ‘Today’ as on-air education correspondent”

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  1. Sassy says:

    wow….this girl looks exactly like her mother….

  2. Diane says:

    Position granted because of her parent’s celebrity. She’ll appear once a month. Her grade, most likely a, “C.”

    (She wrote a book? Who knew = )

  3. vicsmith says:

    From the front she looks just like her mother but in the top picture just like Dubya. I think she’ll do well.

  4. HEB says:

    –ha ha I think she looks more like a Pierce! They messed up which twin should have been named Barbara!

  5. Hieronymus Grex says:

    Ask Jenna if she knows the meaning of irony.

  6. I think Jenna should be respected for the educational merits she has worked hard to achieve. I think people should give her a chance to show her special talents and gifts with the world. I wish her all the best and look forward to seeing her segments on the today show. All educators would agree that the field of education needs a voice for advocacy, in the world to improve the funding and policy for education. Diane

  7. Cowbell says:

    She does look more like Laura Bush now that she’s sporting her dark hair.

    Good for her.

  8. tasteT says:

    she got that same beer can mouth..

    YUCK!!!

    boy her daddy did a number on this country-while he counts all of the money he stole from Iraq during the war
    in his basement “mancave”.

  9. Michelle says:

    I dislike former President Bush as much as the next person, but hating on Jenna just for that reason is wrong.

    Good luck to her.

  10. KATHRYN N MAHLIN says:

    I LIKE THE BUSH FAMILY WHEN JENNY,S FATHER
    WAS RUNNING THE US HE DID A WONDERFUL JOB.
    MY BROTHER IN LAW,S NAME IS STEVE MORMANN.
    STEVE HAS MET JENNA,S HUSBAND MY SISTER
    LELIA AND STEVE WENT TO A PARTY.MY
    BROTHER IN LAW STEVE.AND SHOULD HAVE TALKED TALKED TO MY SISTER.HE LOOKED AT MY
    SISTER AND WALKED BY.