Geoffrey S. Morrell is an American public affairs person who served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs, and was the Press Secretary of the Department of Defense. He was hired to the position in June 2007 and departed in June 2011. Morrell had been a reporter for the American Broadcasting Company

American Broadcasting Company

The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...

.

Early life and education

Morrell earned a bachelor's degree in 1991 from Georgetown University

Georgetown University

Georgetown University is a private, Jesuit, research university whose main campus is in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded in 1789, it is the oldest Catholic university in the United States...

 and earned a master's degree in journalism in 1992 from Columbia University

Columbia University

Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

.

Professional career

Morrell began his reporting career in 1992 at KATV

KATV

KATV, channel 7, is an ABC affiliated television station serving the Little Rock television market and central Arkansas. The station is owned by Allbritton Communications Company....

-TV in Little Rock, Arkansas

Little Rock, Arkansas

Little Rock is the capital and the largest city of the U.S. state of Arkansas. The Metropolitan Statistical Area had a population of 699,757 people in the 2010 census...

, covering the presidential campaign of Bill Clinton

Bill Clinton

William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...

. In 1994, he took a job as a reporter at WSET-TV

WSET-TV

WSET-TV is the ABC television network affiliate for the Roanoke/Lynchburg, Virginia market. The station is licensed to Lynchburg, and transmits its digital signal on VHF channel 13. WSET is owned by the Allbritton Communications Company. Its transmitter is located near Thaxton, Virginia...

 in Roanoke, Virginia

Roanoke, Virginia

Roanoke is an independent city in the Mid-Atlantic U.S. state of Virginia and is the tenth-largest city in the Commonwealth. It is located in the Roanoke Valley of the Roanoke Region of Virginia. The population within the city limits was 97,032 as of 2010...

, and in 1995, Morrell joined KSAZ-TV

KSAZ-TV

KSAZ-TV, virtual channel 10.1, is the Fox owned-and-operated station in Phoenix, Arizona. It is owned by Fox Television Stations in a duopoly with MyNetworkTV station KUTP ....

 in Phoenix

Phoenix, Arizona

Phoenix is the capital, and largest city, of the U.S. state of Arizona, as well as the sixth most populated city in the United States. Phoenix is home to 1,445,632 people according to the official 2010 U.S. Census Bureau data...

 as a TV news reporter. In 1996, Morrell joined WBBM-TV

WBBM-TV

WBBM-TV, virtual channel 2 , is the CBS owned-and-operated television station in Chicago, Illinois. WBBM-TV's main studios and offices are located in The Loop section of Chicago, as part of the development at Block 37, and its transmitter is atop the Willis Tower.-History:WBBM-TV traces its history...

 in Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

 in the same capacity.

Morrell left WBBM-TV in early 2000 when his contract expired and joined ABC News

ABC News

ABC News is the news gathering and broadcasting division of American broadcast television network ABC, a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company...

, working in both the network's Chicago and Washington, D.C. bureaus.

In 2007, Morrell resigned from ABC after seven years with the network to be appointed the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs.

Morrell was replaced by George E. Little

George E. Little

George E. Little was appointed by Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta as deputy assistant secretary of defense/press secretary of the Department of Defense on July 19, 2011.- Professional career :...

in July 2011.