…Roget’s Thesaurus may not have Public Relations as a synonym for Propaganda, but it would be difficult to refute that the two endeavors have just one master, and that both serve solely the master’s agenda. To sugar-coat PR by defining it as purely an art to build relationships between an organization and its key audiences is simply malarkey. PR is just another name for propaganda designed to disseminate ideas and to influence people in accepting and/or adopting them. It’s true in business, equally true in politics. Ethics is not, nor has it ever been, an ingredient entering the mix. And neither is truth. …
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Exit Scott McClellan, DPC; enter Tony Snow, ABD (DPC) and postulant press secretary to George W. Bush. Bye-bye Fox News, hello Faux News!
As far as I can tell, there is only one accredited institution in the nation offering a DPC (Doctor of Political Cosmetology), and that’s the White House. It has been conferring this terminal degree longer than anyone can remember to political writers, media charlatans and presidential press secretaries. But before they let you matriculate in such select and prestigious program, you must prove mastery in at least one PR area, and be willing to spend your novitiate as an alchemist, converting lead-news into gold-news for us the not-so-bright public. Alchemist or prestidigitator, those are the choices.
Snow comes to this program probably better prepared than anyone else that preceded him. The new press secretary has already successfully completed all the required doctoral coursework – a true ABD (all but dissertation), lacking the last requisite: an on-the-job-dissertation. A few masterful brushstrokes and he’ll be on his way to a fast track DPC. One would suggest, however, that success would come easier by being more subtle in this job than he has been in the recent past. Certainly, there is little room for third-rate Snow-jobs like those he performed with his colleagues at Fox. For starters, he should fine tune that conservatism; make it more palatable to an audience far more inquisitive and analytic than the monochrome found at Fox.
But at least for now, or until Congress ceases to be controlled by the GOP, Snow will have much working in his favor, in a playground of fine sand that’s all public relations.
Roget’s Thesaurus may not have Public Relations as a synonym for Propaganda, but it would be difficult to refute that the two endeavors have just one master, and that both serve solely the master’s agenda. To sugar-coat PR by defining it as purely an art to build relationships between an organization and its key audiences is simply malarkey. PR is just another name for propaganda designed to disseminate ideas and to influence people in accepting and/or adopting them. It’s true in business, equally true in politics. Ethics is not, nor has it ever been, an ingredient entering the mix. And neither is truth.
One bets that Tony Snow will feel right at home in a White House that is all PR.
The United States is the PR-nation par excellence; no other nation comes close. Few governments are as blatant in deceiving its own citizens as that of the US, particularly now that all its three branches are neatly tucked under one-party control. Rest assured that the DC which follows Washington no longer stands for District of Columbia. but for Deceit Center. Our nation’s capital has become the black hole for truth.
Just what the PR doctor ordered for Snow. Coming from the higher-decibels Fox News, what more can anyone ask for? From one black hole to the next!
It may be 300,000 times smaller in area than the Devil’s Triangle (a.k.a. the Bermuda Triangle) but its impact on the world is quite profound. Yes! That little triangle with vertices at the White House, the Capitol and the Pentagon has ultra terrestrial forces capable of swallowing whole anything that touches its borders. in any size, shape or form. I am referring to the Washington Triangle where truth disappears as it enters a PR-hole to be forever no more; or to be regurgitated by the black hole, all twisted and unrecognizable.
For Snow, it is a somewhat cynical coincidence that he has left behind another triangle where truth often magically disappeared. One recalls those vertices as The Washington Times, the Bush-father White House and Fox News. all places where he has worked. How accommodating can a new job get? “Tony, we want you to feel at home!”
This is a great homecoming for the new Press Secretary to join la crème of political PR. To be made part of that inner circle, past and present, of an administration that is all-PR. 100% pure, unadulterated PR. What a list of BS-throwers, of bastards and bastardettes of truth: from Torie Clarke (Pentagon’s version of Baghdad Bob), Karen Hughes, the two previous press secretaries, and legion more. always starting and ending with the epitome of what PR success is in politics: Karl Rove.
Just add another name to the list: Doctoral Candidate Tony Snow, celebrity alumnus of Davidson and, most recently, of Fox News.
Written by Ben Tanosborn, (email – ben@tanosborn.com) who writes a weekly column at www.tanosborn.com and www.populistamerica.com
