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For reporting that is an embarrassment to the profession of journalism, and for being beholden to corporate paymasters rather than the citizens of America.
No one better symbolizes the confluence of the corporate media,
the Republican Party, and propaganda disguised as news than
Tony Snow.
After all, this is a guy who worked for a GOP talking points
television outlet (the FOX propaganda network) and then moved
seamlessly to delivering the same partisan messages as White
House press secretary.
As Jeannine Otchis of Hawaii -- the BuzzFlash reader who nominated
Snow -- notes, Tony could claim two opposite "facts" on
successive days with equal vehemence and disdain for anyone
who challenged him. Basically, the role of the ultimate "Snow
Job" on FOX and in the White House was not to convey news
or information, but to sell the "product."
We concede that's not an easy task when what you are "marketing" is
the political equivalent to a Mafia-run garbage dump in New
Jersey. But Snow did it with shameless aplomb.
As the tour de force of his media whoredom, Snow left the White
House a short time ago, he said, because he was not making
enough money there. Like Sean Hannity, he is used to a seven-figure
salary and private jets. Peddling B.S. in full sartorial splendor
merits a big fat paycheck. That's the cardinal rule of media
putzdom.
A CBS
News report on Tony's last news conference in
early September was entitled: "A Final Flurry Of Snow." Alas,
it won't be in this White House. Snow is just switching venues.
The poor man couldn't live on $168,000 a year. Now, he'll start
raking in the big bucks again for his skills as a "smooth
as silk" GOP shill.
After all, what kind of corporate media putz would not be in
it for the money? If you're in the media and you make under
seven figures, the Snows, Hannitys, and O'Reillys of the world
regard you as a worthless shmuck, not a bigtime putz.
As a Christian
Science Monitor article noted
of Snow's tenure in the White House:
As White House press secretary, Snow approached his
job differently from most of his predecessors. He was more
focused on selling the president and his programs, and not
just providing information to reporters.
"You were almost as likely to see him on TV on one of the morning
shows from the [White House] lawn as you were to see him
on TV in a briefing," says Martha Joynt Kumar, an expert
on White House communications at Towson University in Maryland.
Ah yes, Snow's former boss at FOX, Roger Ailes, taught him
well. It was Ailes who was a key strategist in the packaging
of, in successive order, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and
George H. W. Bush. The transformation of Reagan into an "All-American
Brand" was clearly the apotheosis for Ailes's ability
to use television advertising techniques to create consumer
identification with a "product."
Unfortunately for Snow, he came on board as press secretary
when the George Bush "brand" was tarnished and in
a free fall. Like a good salesman, Snow kept pushing his product,
nonetheless, because he was building up chits that he is going
to cash in now that he has left the in-house Pennsylvania Avenue
sales force for the GOP.
Tony, you understand that jumping from FOX to the White House
was a lateral move in the same profession, one in which there
is no place for the truth unless it accidentally collides with
the propaganda point of the day.
In the end, however, you knew that disseminating falsehoods
while looking good for the camera is beyond the pay level funded
by the taxpayers. So you'll just continue your life-long snow
job in the private market.
You remind us how easy it is to separate
journalism from the truth, so how well you merit being
designated the BuzzFlash Media Putz of the Week.
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