In the 1970s, The Boys on the Bus exposed how a clubby pack of male political reporters ruled the road to the White House and shaped the news. Four decades later, an outsider gal from Alaska has commandeered the 2012 media bus — and left Beltway journalism insiders eating her dust. We’ve come a long way, baby.
Amid frenzied speculation over her potential presidential-campaign plans, former GOP Alaska governor Sarah Palin launched an all-American road trip with her family this Memorial Day weekend. Establishment media types didn’t get reserved seats or advance notice of her itinerary. Palin rubbed the Washington media mob’s institutional sense of entitlement right back in its face. “I don’t think I owe anything to the mainstream media. I want them to have to do a little bit of work on a tour like this,” she jabbed.
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Robbed of the reflexive genuflection customarily paid by publicity-seeking candidates to the political press, scribes, cameramen, and producers on the campaign trail began howling louder than the Rolling Thunder Harleys that Palin rode along with on Sunday in Washington, D.C. One miffed CBS News producer, Ryan Corsaro, pouted that the O. J. Simpson–style media caravan giving chase to Palin had created hazardous working conditions for all the intrepid news correspondents.
“I just hope to God that one of these young producers with a camera whose bosses are making them follow Sarah Palin as a potential Republican candidate don’t get in a car crash, because this is dangerous,” Corsaro said. Puh-lease. As if traveling America’s highways to historic tourist spots were akin to driving in an armored tank on Baghdad’s road of death.
In Philadelphia, a pair of news helicopters braved treacherous conditions to monitor the enemy on the ground. Soon, editors tracking the story from their cubbies will be filing workers’ comp claims asserting exposure to secondhand exhaust fumes from Palin’s bus. And I’m counting the minutes until some cub reporter double-parks somewhere in hot pursuit of Team Sarah and demands that she pay his ticket. I mean, how dare Palin “make them follow” her!
As my friend and blogging colleague Doug Powers put it: “Reporters whining about Palin are like kids who can’t reach the cookie jar because she keeps moving it.”
For more than two years, Palin-bashing journalists (on the establishment left and the right) have mocked the conservative supernova while milking her for headlines, circulation, viewership, and Web traffic.
They lambaste her as trivial, while obsessing over her shoes, glasses, and hair — and turning one of her misspelled words on Twitter into Watergate.
They label her a grievance-monger for calling out media double standards and then kvetch, moan, and wallow in a pool of self-pity when she doesn’t spoon-feed them coveted political scoops.
They call her dumb and then run around in circles trying to figure out her “mystery” tour and blame her for “faking them out.”
They blast her for incompetence, but grudgingly acknowledge that she is a master of social media who has changed the rules of the presidential campaign game.
The Atlantic’s Garance Franke-Ruta griped that “reality TV star Palin” was “treating pol reporters like paparazzi — needing and hating, inviting and making chase.” Perhaps Franke-Ruta needs a reminder of what a truly parasitic press-pol relationship looks like. I have stacks of Obama 2008 profiles exulting over his glistening pecs and soaring oratorical skills, followed by countless spurned-lover laments from reporters disappointed about the control freaks who stage-manage his every press appearance.
What makes Sarah stand out in the national GOP field is that she is beholden to no one and controls her own destiny. She doesn’t need media kingmakers to make her. They need her. She doesn’t need newspaper or TV producers to drive her story. She drives them. Crazy.
The unhinged reaction of the Palin-hating convoy reveals what its attendants fear most: a politician who doesn’t fear them.
Gotta SP making the Dead Media dance to her music. She's got nothing to lose and is showing all the other pols that they are weak kneed pansey's. Go Sarah go!
Can the Atlantic be anymore pitiful?
Palin echoes what was one of Reagan an Bush43's most endearing traits to many of us -- the absolute indifference to what is on the front page of the NEW YORK TIMES.
It's hard to imagine Romney or Pawlenty walking past a camera and microphone; Gingrich was born with a sound-bite in his mouth. Beyond that, most of the GOP hopefuls are so publicity starved the have to be faxing itineraries to supermarket coupon throw-aways.
Standing in my yard in Alaska
Texting to my agent in France
I need to go rogue
’Cause I’m featured in Vogue
And I can’t afford to blow my big chance
Cripes! You know it ain’t easy
You know how hard it can be
I need to get rich now
Because it’s all about me
Went and shot a moose on the tundra
Hope it turns out nice on my show
Roger Ailes called to say
You can have it your way
I’m a girl who doesn’t like to hear “No”
Cripes! You know it ain’t easy
You know how hard it can be
I need to get rich now
Because it’s all about me
Trump is out there bashing Obama
Stuff that I can do in my sleep
I’ll rent a big bus
Say it’s all about us
But my services will never come cheap
Cripes! You know it ain’t easy
You know how hard it can be
I need to get rich now
Because it’s all about me
I need to get rich now
Because it’s all about me
I need to get rich now
Because it’s all about me
Ryan Corsaro says that for the press to be following Sarah Palin around is dangerous?
There's a simple solution for that: don't follow her around.
But Corsaro and his ilk will never stop following Sarah Palin, because she's like blood in the water to the press; like sharks, they can't resist her, and go into a frenzy over her.
I LOVE it that Sarah Palin understands the media well enough to twist their noses back for a change. The media hate Palin and want to characterize her as a failure and a buffoon; she's now showing that she understands them better than they understand her.
One of my favorite things about Sarah Palin is that she keeps on believing what she says and saying what she believes without regard to any elites at all. Her record as Governor in Alaska, absent all the partisan exaggeration from either side, is admirable.
But Dave in Georgia pointed out yet another thing I like about her so thanks for that.
Nobody without any ax to grind could credibly argue that she would have been a worse President than Obama has proven to be (and probably not McCain, either!).
She's fairly enjoyable to watch but the media's attempts to "analyze and explain" it all is just priceless!
Palin is of course the airhead, the idiot... Yeah right! This women is outsmarting the key stone cops. Let's hope that the media doesn't drop the ball is making Obama look intelligent because theyre getting their $&@@ handed to them by Palin. But of course she's the airhead and Obama is the genius! LOL!
The funny thing is, Palin worked as part of the media, at least as a sportscaster, and earned a degree involving media and journalism.
She probably knows enough of their tricks to turn it right back in their faces. More than enough, given how lazy it seems most of them have gotten to the point of being the journalist versions of ambulance chasers.
I don't know if I want Sarah to run for President or not, but I love her just being Sarah.
Now, I'll grant--cub reporters are being made to follow her. By their bosses, not by Sarah Palin. If the bosses are worried about their insurance, then, you know--bring them home. Or use stringer reporters in the towns she stops at. Or even, heavens forfend, pick it up from the local coverage.
Or, you know, let her do her bus tour without them. It's not like they were invited!
As to the worry that she's "treating pol reporters like papparazzi"... well, if it quacks like duck, man.
Palin and the media obviously have a symbiotic relationship .
Palin isn't exactly being mobbed by fans or detractors .
If not for the media and the random autograph seeker,
she would be left alone.
At some point though, the media will tire of asking Palin the same questions
and getting the same answers
and they will move on to the next subject.
You're not serious, are you? Wherever she goes, she's mobbed BY fans. You misunderestimate her likeability and loyal fanbase. So I have to conclude from your blurb that you are, in fact, joking.
“I just hope to God that one of these young producers with a camera whose bosses are making them follow Sarah Palin as a potential Republican candidate don’t get in a car crash, because this is dangerous,”
If someone DOES get hurt, then it is the bosses, and not Sarah Palin who are at fault. At least try to make some sense with your criticisms.
Michelle you do a poor job representing Libs' policy differences with SP... I read a lot of serious commentary, none of it compared a Twitter mis-spelling to Watergate.
Also ... If she wants to have a bus tour and not tell journalists what her itinerary is, that's her right, but neither she nor you should act like she's not acting provocative.
It's one thing to pander to "teh MSM", it's another thing to just treat them with basic respect ... that has been my #1 complaint about SP from day 1, that she does not deign to speak to her political opponents with respect.
So she owes her political opponents the respect they have given her? If so, she doesn't owe them much. Frankly, I have yet to read liberal commentary regarding Palin that could be considered "serious". If I am wrong, please direct us to the source.
Respect is earned, and is surely not a given. Seemingly, except at RICKY'S ABODE. How the Palin Machine chooses to deal with the Media,makes for really good theatre, and do not think HerSelf didn't anticipate the chronic whining. After no small amount of disrespect from various Journalistic quarters,a small amount of "Discomfort" on the reporters part is negligible,to Their readers and Listeners. Call it "The Cost Of Doing Business", and Enjoy The Ride!
