I’ve been clicking on a lot of the media sites in Alaska lately to get a feel for how the local coverage of their governor is going. The national media’s outright lies on big stories are sometimes piled up so high that it’s difficult to see the truth on the other side. Some of the coverage of her has been fair, some has been hateful, and some has been indifferent and factual. Bloggers in Alaska seem to be going a bit overboard, but that’s to be expected. They’re a twitchy bunch. Present company excluded, of course.

As for why Mrs. Palin resigned, I don’t really care. I’m sure it will all become clear at some point. I also think it would be very funny if we never find out. Would the national media ever stop complaining about her then? They want closure, and nothing would be more fitting than if she denied it to them.

I noticed something interesting about Levi Johnston’s fake news conference on Thursday:

“Johnston was speaking to The New York Times, The Associated Press and Daily News in a meeting that was arranged by his personal agent and family attorney, Anchorage lawyer Rex Butler. Butler said he put together the session because media outlets had been calling and seeking Johnston’s reaction to the governor’s decision, and because Alaskans want to know why Palin made the decision to step down.”

Mr. Johnston needed his agent/attorney to set up a news conference, and they didn’t bother to call a majority of the local news outlets. There were no television stations there, no radio stations, no citizen bloggers. A New York Times reporter JUST HAPPENED TO BE IN TOWN. How convenient! Maybe the young man is not very eloquent on camera, but wouldn’t you want the news to cover your “news”? Or perhaps, a majority of the Alaska media outlets could care less about Mr. Johnston’s opinion, and had NOT been calling for it. That could explain why they weren’t invited. If he’s as starved for media attention as he appears to be, shouldn’t he have asked the media to show up for his announcement?

I also suspect Mr. Johnston’s advisors didn’t want most of the local reporters there, because they’d be apt to ask some questions that Mr. Johnston wasn’t prepared to answer. Such as:

Mr. Johnston, do you have anything other than speculation to add to this discussion?

Mr. Johnston, how much were you paid to hold this news conference?

Mr. Johnston, wasn’t your 15 minutes up a while ago?

Technorati Tags: Levi Johnston, news conference, Sarah Palin resignation

Tags: Levi Johnston, news conference, Sarah Palin resignation

This entry was posted on Friday, July 10th, 2009 at 12:11 am and is filed under Broadcast Journalism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.