Author of book on Roger Ailes talks about the time that a Fox News reporter dared to question why Sarah Palin would not answer questions.

So Gabriel Sherman, the author of the book "The Loudest Voice in the Room," did this interview with Huffpost Live where he was asked about the contention by Fox News that they keep separate the hard news part of their cable news network from the opinion portion of their cable news network.

Here was his answer:

"There's an example in the book where, during the 2008 election, a young reporter at Fox criticized Sarah Palin for not taking questions from the news media. That was a big topic in the media, lot's of reporters were talking about the way the McCain campaign had kept Palin behind closed doors and she wasn't really taking any questions. And this young reporter said that on Fox and she got chewed out and was no longer put on air after that. She was punished for actually just talking about what was being discussed on the campaign trail."

If a reporter was punished so severely for simply asking a journalistic question, THAT does not indicate a separation of any kind from the news side and the opinion side. Instead it seems to indicate that the whole building is simply dedicated to getting out GOP propaganda.

I love this tidbit because it proves that Fox was working with the Republicans to find some way to present Sarah Palin to the public where her incredible stupidity would not completely derail the McCain campaign.

I remember being on the ground here in Alaska while the GOP was playing hide the candidate, and  gathering more and more data about Palin which indicated that she would be eaten alive during an interview with any real journalist who was not a shill for the Republican party.

Of course every time I would post that opinion I would be deluged by Right Wing types telling me I did not know what I was talking about and that I would eat my words after Palin blew the MSM away in an interview.

So when they ran out of excuses, and Palin finally sat across from the likes of Charlie Gibson and Katie Couric, EVERYTHING I had predicted came true and much, much more.

My personal take on the selection of Sarah Palin is that the McCain campaign really had NO idea what they were getting and based the entire decision on some pretty pictures, her perceived popularity in Alaska, and pressure from the Religious Right.

However I think that Ailes was impressed with her ability to tap into the more radical edge of the conservative wing, and realized that putting her on the air would bring more of the low hanging fruit within reach of his propaganda. So whereas Ailes was clearly never impressed with her as a candidate, he may have been fooled by her talk of a journalism degree to think she might be of some use to him as a pundit or on air personality.

As we all now know that was a miscalculation as well.