Tony Snow’s Stiff Neck
This man’s got backbone.

March 20, 2001 9:15 a.m.

news report tells us that Tony Snow, the former Republican speechwriter turned Fox News chatter-head, is in trouble for writing a column for a Republican-leaning website. Snow's opinionating, his bosses apparently fear, will tag him as a less-than-objective purveyor of news. Snow, at least at this writing, has refused to drop the column. Three cheers for his stiff neck. And a big leg-hike in the direction of his dopey bosses.

Snow's superiors clearly think there's someone out here in viewer-land who buys their "We Report, You Decide" declaration of neutrality. They apparently believe their viewers (which include this writer) believe that their headline-readers and correspondents are "objective" — that is, that their political biases do not influence their work.

What kind of dopes do they take us for? There are very few Americans who believe journalists are objective, and the ones who do don't watch Fox. Indeed, Fox executives are laughing at their own viewers, who turn to their network because it's friendly to conservative viewpoints, in contrast to many of their competitors. Fox's correspondents provide a conservative take on issues, often by allowing conservative sources to debunk liberal positions, or by debunking those positions themselves. These are strategies liberal correspondents have used for decades and they work for conservatives as well.

The result is that the upstart network is gaining rapidly on CNN (which Fox executives call the "Clinton News Network.") Such is the beauty of the marketplace: Build a desired product and you will gain an audience. Fox is gaining not because it appeals to some mass of "neutral" viewers. It went after right-wingers. It's getting them. Imagine that.

What is refreshing about Snow's screw-off attitude is, for one thing, that it's nice to hear a guy telling his bosses to screw off. This seems especially rare in America, most noticeably in government — Clinton's entire cabinet, had it any dignity, would have bolted on him — and also in the media. Stuart Varney, who followed the blowhard Lou Dobbs at CNN, has reportedly told boss Ted Turner to screw off after the latter made a crack about ash-spots on Catholic foreheads. (On a personal note, Snow once filled part of the vacancy created by a mass exodus from a publication where I once worked. His willingness to take that particular job (editorship of the Washington Times' editorial page) struck some of us as a gifted exercise in grab-the-ankles career advancement, but Snow had been stuck in Detroit for a while and that can reportedly have a harrowing effect on one's mental equilibrium.)

In any event, his screw-off stand is impressive not only because it reflects the presence of a backbone, but also because it reflects a correct take on the industry of which he is a part. Cable television, and not only Fox, is deep clover for political operatives and obsessives alike. Nobody goes there looking for roundtables of drones pretending to offer neutral positions. They go for the fights.

The scrapping is often quite good. Chris Matthews, for example, is quite good at baiting liberal and conservative guests (guest baiting is what cable is all about). Others — Paul Begala, Bill Press, and Ollie North come to mind — are far too consumed by their obsessions to do anything but bark their familiar lines, but barking beats droning most days. Then there's the vast horde of consultants, former speechwriters, pollsters, clerks, valets, and other political hacks who remind us, minute by minute, that politics is a petty, sniping, superficial, embarrassing, cynical necessity of life. It also helps that many of the female guests are babes: Katrina Vanden Heuvel beats a nice socialist tambourine, but would probably vanish should she break her nose or contract a disfiguring rash.

One hopes that the Fox brass will come to its senses and get off Snow's back. Punishing a cable guy for being too political is like punishing a monk for being too religious. Of course, if Fox can get Bo Derek to take Snow's place, dump him with all due haste.