President Obama’s first job was a corporate communicator

And he hated it.

Ragan Insider Premium Content
Ragan Insider Content

He, too, knows what it’s like to be overworked and underpaid, because he once held a job writing and editing corporate newsletters.

In a review of David Maraniss’s massive new book, “Barack Obama: The Story,” The Wall Street Journal says that the president was “was paid an $18,000 salary to help to write and edit newsletters for American companies doing business overseas” while working at the company Business International.

“And the young Barack Obama hated it,” writes Jonathan Karl for WSJ. The president left the job after one year.

(Obama discusses the job—his first after earning an undergraduate degree from Columbia University—in his 1995 memoir, “Dreams From My Father.”)

To read the full story, log in.
Become a Ragan Insider member to read this article and all other archived content.
Sign up today

Already a member? Log in here.
Learn more about Ragan Insider.