Hillary Clinton Tackling an Urgent Task: Building a Press Team

Hillary Rodham Clinton’s team of advisers is moving quickly to build a communications team that will handle her campaign’s messaging and play a crucial role in responding to attacks from opponents and critical news coverage, tasks that have grown more urgent after a month in which she has been forced to deal with controversies involving her email use and foreign donations to her family’s foundation.

Mrs. Clinton is bringing on Jesse Ferguson, who recently directed communications at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, to help oversee parts of the day-to-day press operation at her New York headquarters, and to serve as one of the key spokesmen for the campaign, according to three people with knowledge of the hiring, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized by Mrs. Clinton to speak publicly.

The hiring of Mr. Ferguson, a veteran operative who is well liked by the political press corps, is part of an effort by Mrs. Clinton’s incoming communications director, Jennifer Palmieri, to improve the likely candidate’s often-fraught relationship with the news media.

That tension has been on display for much of the last nine days, since The New York Times first reported that Mrs. Clinton exclusively used a personal email address while she was secretary of state. Some supporters attributed the slowness of her response to the email controversy to her not having the communications part of her operation in place.

In addition to Mr. Ferguson, who is close to Robby Mook, Mrs. Clinton’s likely campaign manager, the fledgling campaign is in serious discussions with five other people to join the communications team: Josh Schwerin, who worked with Mr. Mook on Terry McAuliffe’s successful race for governor of Virginia in 2013; Jesse Lehrich, who’s currently at the Democratic research “super PAC” American Bridge; Ian Sams and Rebecca Chalif of the Democratic National Committee; and Tyrone Gayle of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.