Snow Storm
By Chris Weinkopf

When new White House press secretary Tony Snow whirled through the revolving door that separates the mass media from Washington officialdom, there was shock in some press quarters. What in the world is he doing there?

"I mean, it's weird," opined CNN anchor Ali Velshi of Snow's transition from competitor at FOX News to spokesman for the White House. "It's not normal, as much as it might seem normal. This is an unusual move."

Actually, making the leap between newsroom and White House press office (or back) is anything but new. Pierre Salinger was a journalist before becoming press secretary for Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, and he subsequently became ABC's chief foreign correspondent. Bill Moyers also served as LBJ's chief flack before launching a career as a CBS, NBC, and PBS newsie and commentator. Ron Nessen, who was an NBC News correspondent, spent two years as President Ford's top spokesman. And three Clinton mouthpieces--George Stephanopoulos, Dee Dee Myers, and Joe Lockhart--have all held jobs before or since in the establishment press.

What made the sight of Snow at the podium so "unusual" is that he is, well, a conservative--one at the top-rated cable news network. He's also been a host and anchor, not just a commentator.

Unlike the liberal revolving door, which spins effortlessly from the halls of power to the mansions of the establishment press, the media side of the conservative door typically opens only to the right-wing ghetto. Conservatives who travel between the second and fourth estates usually become Professional Anti-Liberals: either right-wing commentators on establishment networks (like Pat Buchanan or Mary Matalin) or mainstays at conservative niche publications (Bill Kristol or Peggy Noonan). If they are lucky enough to get positions at news outlets at all, their job is dispensing opinion, not making or shaping the news.

The rules are very different for liberals. The big TV networks, the richest newspapers, and the glossiest magazines are all happy to trade players with liberal administrations. Tim Russert, who launched himself working for Mario Cuomo and Pat Moynihan, is now not only host of NBC's "Meet the Press," but also the network's Washington bureau chief. After leaving the Clinton White House, George Stephanopoulos became an ABC reporter, and he now occupies the seat once held by David Brinkley on the network's Sunday morning talk show. Before he served Bill Clinton, Joe Lockhart held editorial jobs at NBC, ABC, and CNN.

Traditionally, there has been not one, but two revolving doors in Washington, and the one that leads journalists and flacks to and from the most lucrative and powerful posts stood under a sign marked "Liberals Only." There have been a few exceptions, like Ron Nessen, or Dorrance Smith, a former ABC executive producer who now serves as Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs. But none has had the name recognition or prominence of Tony Snow--top spokesman in a Republican White House, drawn not from the right-wing ghetto, but from the biggest presence in popular news today.

On this point, liberals who loathe FOX almost as much as they detest Bush might protest: FOX, too, is part of the right-wing ghetto! Nancy Pelosi said as much when she quipped that Snow's new "job is to defend the President at the White House, when he's been defending the President on FOX. What's changed?"

But the predictable anti-FOX potshots miss the point. While it's true that conservatives mostly tune in to FOX over CNN, the network is not explicitly right-wing in the way that The Weekly Standard and the Washington Times are. It's not subscriber-based, or serving some niche market. It's now a middle-American institution, and its ratings dwarf those of its competitors.

FOX may lean right, but no more than CNN and the rest lean left. As its market position makes abundantly clear, it's the most "mainstream" of all the nets.

With the rise of FOX, conservatives have become full-fledged members of at least a corner of the establishment press. And so the spinning door between media and politics, which has long served Democrats so well, is now open to members of both parties. That is unusual.