A Truce Between Sarah Palin and The Media?

The Anchorage Press published a thoughtful article on Governor Sarah Palin's feud with the Media.

You will remember that Sarah Palin used the rival Anchorage Daily News as an example of a media out of control in her interview with John Zeigler for his documentary.

The Governor was complaining about how the Main Stream Media picked up anonymous lies from bloggers that Trig wasn't her baby. The Governor pointed out that the rumor still persists because she just got a phone call from the Daily News asking about Trig's real mother.

Here is a fascinating excerpt from the ADN's article about the incident:

"Governor Palin and the Anchorage Daily News had a very public back-and-forth in the last week over a reporter’s efforts to definitively report on the persistent rumor that young Trig Paxson Van Palin is not really the governor’s son, that her pregnancy was somehow faked.

ADN editor Pat Dougherty published an email exchange between him and the governor on his blog after the 'There you go again' release was issued. In the exchange, he explains 'I finally decided, after watching this go on unabated for months, to let a reporter try to do a story about the ‘conspiracy theory that would not die’ and, possibly, report the facts of Trig’s birth once and for all.” Dougherty calls the rumor 'nutty nonsense,' and says that he wanted his reporter, Lisa Demer, to 'report the facts of Trig’s birth thoroughly enough to kill the nonsense once and for all.'

'That’s a disingenuous response,' Palin tells the Press. 'I’ve said from day one, no, you guys are off-base in chasing this lie. Of course Trig’s my son. My doctor’s said the same thing. My medical summary that was released was the same information. We stated the truth, and Pat knows that. I feel like these individuals and entities have much better things to do than continue to try to put to rest this scandalous ridiculous rumor that some in the media continue to try to chase down.'

'I would pose this question to Gov. Palin and Bill McAllister,” Dougherty responded to the Press in an email (also subsequently posted on his blog). “The Daily News ignored the Trig controversy for more than four months. Not only has the paper never written a story about it, until last month no one at the ADN had ever done any serious reporting on it. If the Daily News were interested in proving the ‘conspiracy’ surrounding Trig's birth as straight news, why would we wait three or four months to start looking into it? Because that's how we usually handle news? Hardly. Is it really so implausible that we watched this conspiracy theory swirl and grow and show no sign of going away for months until we finally decided to report a story about the persistence of bizarre claims surrounding the birth of the governor's son? I think most competent journalists would recognize ‘the persistence of bizarre claims surrounding the birth of the governor's son’ as the basis of a potentially interesting story. Most competent journalists would also understand that the story doesn't work if it can't show definitively that the claims are false. It's only a ‘bizarre conspiracy theory’ if you can show that it's not true, which is why we wanted to document the truth. Why this isn't obvious to Bill McAllister I can't explain.'

McAllister says that although the paper didn’t run a story previously on the Trig rumor, ADN reporter Kyle Hopkins was aggressively questioning him about the matter on August 30 and 31, the two days immediately after McCain chose Palin to run as the GOP’s vice presidential candidate. 'They didn’t run anything, but they were definitely interested.”

The National Media made Trig's birth a story after Sarah Palin became a threat. After her speech at the Republican National Convention, John McCain surged ahead of Barack Obama in the polls. It is important to remember that fact. It can be lost in the fog of political war.

Sarah Palin had to be taken down and the media was much to eager to oblige.

No matter what the editor claims, The Anchorage Daily news wants the Trig story because it sells papers, attracts web clicks and raises the papers prominence. The story would have been important for the newspaper. The Governor is right to be skeptical of any claim of a high minded, journalistic search for the truth.

The Anchorage Daily News was following the lead of the Washington Press corp like an awkward teenager in High School who wants to be liked by the cool kids.

It would be nice if Sarah Palin could do the work of the state, the work that the people of elected her to do, without the backyard sniping of the local media working for their own self-interest.

And many, including the Anchorage Press agree. Here is how writer Brendan Joel Kelley ends his piece:

"Tuesday evening, on CNN, political rivals discussing the situation between Palin and the media found common ground. Republican pundit Bill Bennett said, “She should step out of the limelight and the media should leave her alone.” Democratic strategist James Carville agreed.

The governor’s office says she doesn’t want the constant exposure, that the recent blitz due to Ziegler’s film excerpts was unexpected. The legislative session starts next week, and there’s serious work to be done—the work that Alaskans elected her to do.

If nothing else, maybe the session—with its hard and sometimes-boring work on policy, rather than politics—will finally cool the national appetite for all things Palin and make way for a truce. We’ll find out soon."

You can read the entire Achorage Press column by clicking here.

And you can email Brendan at bjk@anchoragepress.com