Talkshow Host is Next on Bush's Frontline

From her front-row perch in the White House briefing room, Helen Thomas has weathered the arrival of television and the internet. Now she faces the dawning of another new age in presidential reporting with the appointment of the conservative talkshow host and Fox anchor Tony Snow as White House press spokesman.

Mr Snow is a star in two media that did not exist when Ms Thomas came to the White House: 24-hour cable news, which started in the 1980s, and conservative talk radio, which did not come into its own until a decade after.

He also did a stint as speechwriter for George Bush Sr, and is the first working journalist appointed to the post since Ron Nessen, who was Gerald Ford’s press secretary from 1974 to 1975.

Mr Nessen, an old colleague of Ms Thomas from UPI, the wire service, says Mr Snow’s main challenge will be to use his journalistic skills to get information from the White House and avoid the situation that often befell the outgoing press secretary, Scott McClellan, of appearing to be out of the loop. "I think his toughest job will be to make sure he knows what is going on in the White House," Mr Nessen told the Guardian. "He needs to get his information first hand. "If he has to go to other staff asking what to say in response to a question he may get misled, and in turn mislead the press corps, which could damage his credibility."

After a succession of press secretaries with backgrounds in public relations or on the campaign trail, Mr Snow will be the first in some years to understand instinctively what journalists want.

But he will have to navigate an American press corps that is much larger than the dozen or so reporters from Ms Thomas’s early days.

Unusually for a White House press secretary, Mr Snow has been a critic of the Bush administration, which he has called "impotent" and "an embarrassment".