Challengers in Britain, believing FOX News can’t stake claim to being fair and balanced, recently lost their appeal to the country’s Advertising Standards Authority. The authority ruled that the fair and balanced claim “would be seen as News Corporation’s opinion of the service they provided rather than an objective claim.” Thus, the channel is allowed to continue using its trademark fair and balanced tagline, reports Inside Cable News.

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Beltway sources tell Big Head DC that former Bush administration Press Secretary Tony Snow will make his debut on CNN tomorrow night during coverage of the Pennsylvania primary.

There’s some inside media speculation that this move may be CNN’s response to try to blunt praise Karl Rove has received as a pundit this primary season on FOX News.

But the bigger question is whether a short term former Bushie like Snow will even make an impact…look no further than former Bush communications director Nicolle Wallace on CBS — has anyone heard a thing about her?

For those of you who remember Snow before his White House days, he was a host of FOX News Sunday until 2003 at which point the network relegated him to radio to make room for Chris Wallace.

UPDATE: CNN confirms the move in a press release issued after Big Head DC broke the news:

Former White House press secretary Tony Snow will join CNN as a conservative commentator beginning today, it was announced by Jon Klein, president of CNN/U.S. A well-known and respected observer of politics with a longstanding news background, Snow will contribute to CNN as the network continues to broadcast winning political coverage.

Snow most recently served as press secretary to President George W. Bush from April 2006 to September 2007. For 10 years beginning in 1996, he appeared on Fox News Channel, hosting Fox News Sunday, Weekend Live with Tony Snow and other programs. From 2003 to 2006, The Tony Snow Show aired on Fox News Radio.

Before joining Fox, Snow served as a substitute “From the Right” co-host for CNN’s Crossfire.

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Boston Globe scriber Mark Shanahan lucked out by getting a ticket for the Radio and Television Correspondents dinner this year…although, it looks like that is the last time he will attending the DC ball. Judging from his piece on the event, Shanahan didn’t mesh well with his hosts — and they ended up leaving him in the dust when he asked about attending an after party.

Said one partygoer, “He just seemed really out of place and uncomfortable. It doesn’t seem like he gets out of the house much…he just couldn’t hack it.”

A FOX insider explained that Shanahan was a fourth string invite — “He was only extended an invitation AFTER three other more prominent reporters were unable to attend — he was literally on the D-list of possible invitees.”

Ouch. Maybe Kathy Griffin might have some advice for Shanahan?

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Do you think this kiss up piece to Karl Rove and his new role on FOX News is going to help Howard Kurtz convince any of his critics that he isn’t in the tank for the GOP?

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Looks like Crain’s New York Business reporter Matthew Flamm royally screwed up with a doozie of a “report” today, which indicated Bill O’Reilly might be “anchoring” FNC’s Ohio and Texas primary coverage Tuesday night. This guy doesn’t just have egg on his face – he has an entire omelet. As soon as we saw this story, alarm bells went off. Anyone who covers FOX knows that Brit Hume would never be dethroned from anchoring the network’s political coverage.

As one wag us, “Just the fact that the notion of O’Reilly anchoring election coverage even passed Flamm’s smell test is off the charts. This guy should run fleeing from the media beat immediately before he suffers any further embarrassment.”

Big Head DC looked at some of Flamm’s previous “reporting” on Fox News and that turned out to be wrong as well. In September of 2006, he asserted that “FNC suffering from popular disaffection with Republican policies and the declining ratings could pose problems for cable subscription fees.”

It’s widely known that FNC made millions off the renewal deals charging nearly $1.00 per sub in the Fall of 2006 — in fact, News Corp is still referring to the profits made off these deals in their earnings reports nearly two years later.

Not to mention, is Flamm kidding in the way he referred to the ratings? Yeah, CNN and MSNBC have had big numbers with the Hillary-Obama debates – any network would – you could put them on the Weather Channel and get seven million viewers, too. Still, both networks have been unable to sustain the viewership.

In light of all this, we hear Flamm is being referred to as “Matthew Flailing” in some media circles today. The bigger question remains: how did such a woefully inaccurate story make it to print? Some insiders are even wondering whether Flamm will even have a job come Monday.

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Bob Bennett, otherwise known as John McCain’s lawyer, happened to be scheduled to appear on Hannity & Colmes on Wednesdy evening — before anyone knew the New York Times McCain / Vicki Iseman would break:

From the program:

“You know, I’m in a pretty unique position to talk about John McCain. First, I should tell your listeners I’m a registered Democrat, so I’m not on his side of a lot of issues. But I investigated John McCain for a year and a half, at least, when I was special counsel to the Senate Ethics Committee in the Keating Five, which, by the way, this New York Times article goes back to and discusses, goes back years and years. And if there is one thing I am absolutely confident of, it is John McCain is an honest man. I recommended to the Senate Ethics Committee that he be cut out of the case, that there was no evidence against him, and I think for the “New York Times” to dig this up just shows that Senator McCain’s public statement about this is correct. It’s a smear job.”

“Ironically, you guys were kind enough to invite me on to talk about my book. This story broke, you know, an hour ago. And this was not my intention here, you know, to come on and defend John McCain. I think it’s the right thing to do. One thing I concluded, he is an honest man. This is a real hit job. “

“And after representing him the last few months, answering all the questions of the New York Times, looking into the allegations they wanted us to respond to, I cannot find, nor can they, a single instance where John McCain did something contrary to his beliefs.”

“I only began representing Senator McCain a couple of months ago in connection with some dirty tricks, which has now resulted in this article, I believe. I investigated John McCain. I was investigating him as counsel to the Senate Ethics Committee. It was after a year and a half year of investigating him, I decided that he was a very honest man and recommended to the Senate that they not go after him. So, you know, I didn’t ever represent him before. I don’t know, you know, John McCain is winning an awful lot. And just a repeat of South Carolina, if you ask me.”

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In his “worst person in the world” segment tonight, Keith Olbermann suggested that FOX News Channel underwrites what he called “anonymous slander blogs” to, presumably, bash former FOX talent. Olbermann’s musings came after he referenced the situation of Eric Burns, a news personality who was recently fired by the FOX network.

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For those of you who don’t remember, prior to MSNBC, David Shuster was a correspondent for FOX News Channel based in D.C. A FOX News insider tells Big Head DC that “one of the reasons we fired David was because he was irresponsible…we knew it was just a matter of time before he would implode…”

Earlier: NBC VP Wanted to Fire Shuster ‘On the Spot’

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In case you missed Glenn Greenwald’s review of the FOX News anchor’s interview with President Bush:

Chris Wallace interviewed George Bush today on Fox News and, after asking Bush about his views on waterboarding, this was the “question” which Wallace - sitting next to Bush in front of a cozy fireplace (after a borderline-romantic stroll with him down a picturesque, snow-covered Camp David trail) - asked of him:

WALLACE: I want to follow up on that. Whether it is interrogation of terror prisoners or the intercepting of surveillance among al Qaeda members, are you ever puzzled by all of the concern in this country about protecting of rights of people who want to kill us?

Wallace’s obsequious framing was too brazenly propagandistic even for Bush to accept:

BUSH: That is an interesting way to put it. I wouldn’t necessarily define some of the critics of my policy that way. I would say that they want to be very careful that we don’t overstep our bounds from protecting the civil liberties of Americans.

If the subject of a political interview finds the questions from the “journalist” too favorably slanted to embrace (basically: “I think you’re being unfairly harsh to my political opponents” ), isn’t that a fairly compelling sign that there is something profoundly corrupt with the journalist?

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Liberal Atlantic blogger Matt Yglesias once offered these tough words to FOX News — and to those who appear on the network’s programs:

…[I]ndeed, progressives have every reason to want the opportunity to present their arguments in a persuasive manner to the Fox News audience. The problem, though, is that this can’t be done because Fox News is run by the people who run Fox News. As I well recall from my appearances on the Hugh Hewitt showing, appearing on hack-controlled media outlets is not an effective method of persuading the audience. The rules are rigged. A debate organized and run by a Republican Party propaganda outlet is not, in practice, going to provide the opportunity for Democrats to persuade Fox-loving conservatives anymore than appearing on Hannity and Colmes contributes to the creation of a balanced and vigorous public sphere. Television is especially tricky for providing the illusion of unmediated reality while, in fact, allowing a thousand different kinds of mediation. Thinking that you can beat television professionals whose job is to make you look bad on a television network that they control is just hubris. Nobody’s that smart. Nobody’s that clever. Nobody beats the producers.

And, yet, there Yglesias was today on FOX News, chatting amiably about Mike Huckabee’s presidential bid. Have the producers gotten better? Or did Yglesias change his mind once his bosses at the Atlantic told him to get his butt on TV to help promote the magazine?

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