Fox News Deliberately Low-Balled Sarah Palin According To Reliable Sources (CNN)

Sarah PalinMuch has been made of the news that Tea Party queen Sarah Palin and Fox News, the cable network that served as the PR agency for the Tea Party, have parted ways. The reporting generally implied that Palin had turned down Fox’s offer to renew her contract. That is, in all likelihood, exactly what happened.

However, contract negotiations are more complex than that. And now we have reporting from CNN’s Howard Kurtz that fleshes out some of the ambiguities of the original stories. On his program Reliable Sources, Kurtz expanded on the matter by saying…

“My reporting shows that Fox News did offer Sarah Palin a new contract, but it is what I would call a low-ball offer, significantly less, a fraction of the million dollars a year she had been paid.”

In other words, Fox deliberately made an offer that they knew Palin would reject because they had no interest in retaining her beyond her current contract. As speculated previously here at News Corpse, Fox probably “offered her a moose burger and parking validation to re-up – and even that would have been more than she’s worth.” After all, why would Fox continue to overpay someone about whom Fox CEO Roger Ailes reportedly said he thinks is an idiot?

Palin’s star has been fading fast. Fox News only posted a modified AP story about the separation on their web site. Fox Nation, known for its rabid partisanship and rank dishonesty, didn’t report on it all. As evidence of Palin’s rapidly declining value, her first post-Fox stop was at the Internet’s home of doctored videos and right-wing propaganda, Breitbart News. There she answered a couple of vacant questions from BreitBrat Stephen Bannon, the sycophantic producer of the fawning Palin crockumentary, “The Undefeated” (the most ironically named box office bomb ever, considering it chronicles one of modern history’s most frequently defeated political failures).

In response to Bannon’s query about what she planned to do next, Palin had no answer other than vagaries about her desire to quit “preaching to the choir.” She spoke of “sharing more broadly the message of the beauty of freedom” to a larger audience. She didn’t give any indication of where she would find an audience receptive to her wingnuttery that she thinks is larger than Fox News from which she was just ousted. The narrow appeal of her conservative extremism is unlikely to find much acceptance beyond the tiny choir that is currently singing from her warped hymnal.

Then Bannon asked her where she thinks the country stands today and she launched into a dirty laundry list of every worn out criticism the right has lobbed at Obama for four years. She spoke of deficits and unemployment – problems that resulted from George Bush’s mismanagement of the economy and have improved under Obama. Of course, she also included fabricated controversies about ObamaCare, Benghazi, and gun control, that are a staple of the right’s outrage machine.

Palin told BreitBrat Bannon that “Conservatism didn’t lose.” She blames the 2012 GOP debacle entirely on Mitt Romney, despite the fact that he ran as a “severely conservative” candidate embracing every position held dear to the Republican far-right fringe. And she declares that “we haven’t begun to fight! But we delight in those who underestimate us.” In that regard she must be filled to the brim with delight, because it would hard to have a lower estimation of the woman who thinks a “gotcha” question is “What magazines do you read.”

On the basis of that level of insightful commentary, it’s no wonder that Fox chose to insult Palin with a pittance of her prior pay, and free her to tarnish the reputation of some other news enterprise (i.e. Breitbart). Apparently somebody at Fox has concluded that their reputation has already been tarnished enough.

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8 thoughts on “Fox News Deliberately Low-Balled Sarah Palin According To Reliable Sources (CNN)

  1. Well, since Fox’s ratings have sunk weekly since the election (losing to MSNBC, no less!) it was time to clean house and sweep out the dust bunnies from under the bed. I wonder when Fox will show up at the compound to reclaim their expensive broadcasting equipment, the faux fireplace and the various faux backdrops they used. Otherwise, Toady might figure out a way to broadcast her all my himself, and Sarah could start her own network with the money still trickling in from her ‘bots. Nah, that would be far too much work.

  2. She is right about one thing. Don’t underestimate her. If she gets money behind her she can charge the tired teapublicans again. Remember with that group facts don’t matter. She feels scorned and she hates the president. She still fighting the 2008 election. Bitter and holding her bible and rifle. She might be muzzled for now but someone will put money in her basket and raise her ugly head again. In a way leaving Fox is going to allow her to be more out there. At least Fox could hold put a muzzle on her for a while.

    • I’m not worried about her. Just look at others who have been bumped off of Fox. (Glenn Beck, Rick Santorum, Dick Morris, Michelle Bachmann). Where are they now?

      Sure…she can build own little group of outsiders, but it won’t have any impact.

  3. I always felt Sarah Palin was woefully unprepared to hold national office and did nothing after the 2008 campaign to get herself ready for another shot afterward. I doubted, given her the ineptitude she demonstrated during the 2008 campaign, she would ever be able to be taken seriously in a national campaign ever again.

    Instead, she decided to make some real $$$, even if it created more of a caricatured image. Her low brow analysis on FOX was irritating, yet curiously entertaining in a “she is a hot mess” kind of way. I always felt her relevance and impact would be minimal on FOX, and as it turns out, it was.

    What doesn’t cease to amaze me is how much coverage she gets from those who think she is irrelevant, and just plain dumb.

    In a sense, she is the Al Sharpton of the Right. Except that Al Sharpton got his own show on MSNBC and seems to be ignored by the likes of this forum for the complete ineptitude he displayed during his run for POTUS, his wild ramblings and rushes to judgement pre- and post campaign, and his current meanderings on his MSNBC hit show, “Resist We Much”.

    • You may be surprised to learn that I agree with you about both Palin and Sharpton. I was not happy when MSNBC announced his show, and I wrote about it at the time. I think MSNBC was right to try to diversify the cable news landscape, but there were better options available.

      Sharpton has problems articulating clearly and is not skilled at Teleprompter reading. I hoped that MSNBC would put a real broadcaster in the position. That said, he does have a following who adore him and if there are large numbers of African-Americans who support him, I can hardly dismiss their views.

      • I’m glad you saw Sharpton for what he is. Just as Palin has a loyal following, I wonder if you would leave her to her loyal audience without constantly pointing out her shortcomings.

        Since your blog is about the news and not news reporting per se, ongoing criticism of MSNBC for having such an inane drone on its airwaves, and Sharpton, despite his loyal African American following, would appear to be appropriate.

        • No, actually, that would not be appropriate. If you’re interested in ongoing criticism of progressives, you can find that elsewhere pretty easily. That’s not what I do. I’ve got enough on my plate with the conservative loons, I can’t be watching all the liberal loons too.

          For some reason people can’t grasp that this site has an opinion. It is not ideologically impartial. I will always strive to make honest arguments based on facts, but they will also be consistent with my principles. There are also honest, fact-based arguments on the other side, but so much of what I see on Fox is flat-out lying that I cannot ignore it.

          • I respect that, Mark, in light of your opinions and point of view. And I realize you can’t keep tabs on everybody, but you’re really missing some very low hanging fruit on the progressives. (Something to consider should you run low on conservative fodder to criticize…even though I know that will never happen.)

            I do understand that yours is a progressive blog. It’s my duty to challenge what you say when I disagree, lest those who only read what they agree with miss the opportunity to hear a differing voice.

            I think it’s good to read and listen to different viewpoints in order that my own point of view does not become entrenched in a given ideology without constant challenge, review and renewal. For helping provide me that balance, I thank you. For your wrong-headed opinions, you have my sincere sympathy! (I don’t use smiley faces, but if I did, one would be placed right here!)

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