Douglass had a long career as journalist with
ABC News and
CBS News and covered some of the major events of the 1990s and early 2000s. She was awarded the National Press Foundation's Everett Dirksen Award for Distinguished Coverage of Congress in 1999. She began her journalism career in 1973 with
KNXT. Douglass served as a senior strategist and spokeswoman for the
Barack Obama 2008 presidential campaign. Following Obama's victory, Douglass was appointed spokeswoman for the
presidential inauguration committee. During President Barack Obama's first term, she was director of communications for the
White House Office of Health Reform from 2009 to 2010. In June 2010, she was named vice president and Head of Corporate and Strategic communications at
Atlantic Media, and later became Senior Vice President of Global Communications. In 2013, she moved to Italy when her husband, John Phillips, was named ambassador to Italy. In 2019, she endorsed
Pete Buttigieg in the
2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries. In October 2022, Douglass joined the Council for Responsible Social Media project launched by
Issue One to address the negative mental, civic, and public health impacts of
social media in the United States co-chaired by former
House Democratic Caucus Leader
Dick Gephardt and former
Massachusetts Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey. ==Personal life==