Ed Brayton is a freelance writer and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
He says it's time to stop paying the White House press secretary:
Yet we pay this person well into six figures of taxpayer money . . . for what, exactly? This person is supposed to be the liaison between the White House and the press. And we're now to the point where stonewalling, obfuscating, spinning, parsing, and generally preventing the flow of truthful information are accepted and acknowledged parts of the job description (standard disclaimer about these things also being endemic to politics itself notwithstanding).Why are we paying someone to mislead us, stonewall us, and flack for the president-someone who basically runs an overglorified White House PR shop? Any time there's any sort of controversy at all, you can bet the WHPS will be doing everything he/she can to make sure we know as little as possible. So why should we pay for that? It's pretty insulting, really.
Couldn't agree more. The White House press secretary is paid to lie to us. We all know it.
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Comments
The White House press secretary is paid to make the White House press corps feel like they're doing journalism, so they don't go out and actually do journalism.
Posted by: Ginger Yellow | March 26, 2008 10:05 AM
But if we don't pay the press secretary, then we won't get "teh nuuz." Reporters will have to do real investigations on the news. The 24-hour "nuuz" channels will have to spend real money on people who know how to think logically, and there might be in-depth coverage on a subject.
We can't have that, because that much infusion of "truth in the news" would be too much of a shock to the people.
Posted by: Umlud | March 26, 2008 10:14 AM
Change the name to White House Propaganda Secretary and let the party (or fox News) pay the person's salary.
Posted by: IanR | March 26, 2008 11:45 AM
yeah, but at least Dana is pretty to look at while she lies to us.
Posted by: anonymous | March 26, 2008 11:48 AM
I've always wondered what would happen if the President let the WH Press Corps choose the Press Secretary. I mean, I know it will never happen in the current climate of propoganda, but it's nice to dream...
Posted by: Shygetz | March 26, 2008 12:55 PM
This reminds me of one of my own blog posts when Snow retired ... the man was getting paid $150k+ and said that he had to retire - "I'm not going to be able to go the distance, but that's primarily for financial reasons." Snow said. "I've told people when my money runs out, then I've got to go."
That the Press Secretary for the White House - who probably has pretty good bennies - has to retire from a $168,000/year job for financial reasons is game-set-match proof that the people in and around the White House have NO idea what Average Americans are dealing with on a day to day basis.
They shouldn't have replaced him.
Posted by: Andrea | March 26, 2008 1:12 PM
"...stonewalling, obfuscating, spinning, parsing, and generally preventing the flow of truthful information"
Sorry, Ed, I just don't see your point here. This all sounds really hard, so it looks to me like the press secretary really has to work for his or her pay.
Posted by: Sastra | March 26, 2008 4:16 PM
No, the WHPS is paid to get information out. So if, instead, the WHPS is suppressing information, it means the WHPS is stealing from the public, or committing fraud, at the least.
Jail, friends. Then impeach 'em.
Posted by: Ed Darrell | March 26, 2008 6:04 PM
Wow. Of course I know that the press secretary is basically a paid liar for the administration, but the absurdity of the taxpayers paying someone who is hired to do nothing but lie to the taxpayers never hit me before.
Posted by: Dr X | March 26, 2008 8:04 PM
Considering the huge sums we pay the Justice Department to cover up illegal acts, the Environmental Protection Agency to pollute the world the CIA/NSA to spy on us, the departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Treasury to funnel our money to cronies ... paying the press secretary to lie to us is probably the best bargain we have in Washington.
Posted by: itchy | March 26, 2008 9:30 PM
They have a press secretary because the press attends the press conferences. A better question: why do news organizations pay their journalists to attend?
Posted by: tomr | March 27, 2008 10:21 AM
Because it's cheaper than real journalism.
Posted by: Ginger Yellow | March 27, 2008 11:20 AM
Eh? The EPA has factories, or what?
Posted by: James Hanley | March 27, 2008 5:18 PM
Yeah, yeah. I could have said "indirectly" pollute the world, but that's not as poetic.
When the EPA shirks its responsibility and allows corporations to decide how much pollution is OK -- yes, that's polluting. More to the point, that's a waste of money we're using to fund the EPA.
Posted by: itchy | March 27, 2008 11:04 PM
AS far as Snow's financial situation goes, he may have some hefty medical bills to take care of.
Posted by: Ian Gould | March 28, 2008 9:09 AM