Sunday night, the second episode of Sarah Palin’s Alaska premiered. Monday night, Bristol Palin performed in the final episode of Dancing with the Stars, as her mother Sarah cheered her on from the audience. Tuesday morning, Sarah Palin’s second book, America by Heart, was released in bookstores across the country. Tuesday night, Bristol Palin was awarded third place on Dancing with the Stars.
Since quitting the Alaska
Ironically, Palin has strong, vocal distain for the media. Besides her appearances on the Fox News network, where she is a paid contributor, other news outlets are granted very little access to the former governor. Other networks and publications receive most of their information from the Palin camp through her Facebook and Twitter accounts.
As Robert Draper’s New York Times profile on the former governor points out, her “denunciations of the Obama White House via Twitter garnered substantial attention not because the opinions were especially novel but because they were expressed with the brashness of a wily headline-grabber.”
Many politicians who are active on Facebook and Twitter portray their use of social media as a means to directly interact with their constituents. However, bypassing the traditional media is a disservice to Americans.
According to political science scholars, the media is the fourth estate in politics. Even Palin admits “[the media] know much more than I know and other people like me.” Through their extensive knowledge of politics, the media can act as a gatekeeper, determining which issues are of national importance. In the case of elections, they help evaluate candidates for office by scrutinizing their past, and their political records.
Palin’s path to the Republican candidacy is very different from many other politicians. Usually, presidential candidates build up legislative records over time, and carefully plan each step of their career to improve their credibility among their party and reporters.
“I know that hurdle I would have to cross, that some other potential candidate wouldn’t have to cross right out of the chute, is proving my record. That’s the most frustrating thing for me – the warped and perverted description of my record and what I’ve accomplished over the last two decades. It’s been much more perplexing to me than where the lamestream media has wanted to go about my personal life. And other candidates haven’t faced these criticisms the way I have,” Palin told Draper.
Palin rebuffs most traditional media outlets, communicates through social media, and capitalizes on free media she receives through non-political television appearances; she characterizes her treatment by the “lamestream media” as unfair.
Like Newt Gingrich, Palin is better suited as a political commentator. Palin’s record was scrutinized by the media in 2008. Since, she quit the Alaska
