Fox News Screws Over Sarah Palin, Planned to Use Prerecorded Interviews During Her "Real American Stories" Special

Last night I posted about an upcoming Fox News Channel special called Real American Stories , which is scheduled to air on Thursday April 1 at 10pmET, and re-air Sunday at 9pmET.

Mediaite.com seemed to have the scoop on this special, with a paragraph written as follows:

The show will “focus on a range of such stories including a Marine Medal of Honor recipient who gave his live to save his comrades.” But also there will be the celebrity guests – a very broad range of celebrity guests.

Included in the list of celebrity "guests" were rapper and actor LL Cool J and Country music star Toby Keith. This same paragraph appeared in different forms across the blogosphere.

Today the internet is spattered with articles about replies from LL Cool J and Toby Keith. Apparently Fox News planned to use prerecorded interviews of the two men, and neither seems too enthusiastic about the situation.

Regarding Toby Keith, Mediaite.com reports that according to HitFix:

Keith, who says he’s a registered Democrat, was not told about the usage of a past interview for Palin’s program. “We were never contacted by Fox,” his rep tells Hitfix.”I have no idea what interview it’s taken from.They’re promoting this like it’s a brand new interview. He never sat down with Sarah Palin.

Mediaite.com also offers their own account of the situation with Mr. Keith:

Well we knew he wasn’t interviewed by Palin, but he is a significant part of the special – and more so than LL Cool J (and Jack Welch). His story is narrated by Palin.

But Fox tells us they did contact several members of Keith’s team to make them aware that he would be part of the program, including Elaine Schock, his publicist, who spoke with a Fox News producer, and the USO, where his manager is on the board. An insider tells us Welch wasn’t contacted either – and as far as we know, is happy with his part in the show.

LL Cool J made a comment via Twitter, which read:

"Fox lifted an old interview I gave in 2008 to someone else & are misrepresenting to the public in order to promote Sarah Palins Show. WOW"

Later, in a discussion with E! Online, a representative followed up on his behalf:

Contrary to what was reported, LL Cool J was never scheduled to be a guest on Real American Stories with Sarah Palin this week. The show had planned to use an interview from 2008 that was being repurposed without LL’s permission. This statement is not a reflection of any feelings LL has toward Fox News or Ms. Palin, whom he has never met, rather a clarification of what we have seen published in the media.”

For their part, Fox News told Mediaite the following:

“Fox News did not commit to restrictions on its interview with Mr. Smith so therefore the network did not need his permission to use the interview in this program.”

In my opinion, Fox News Channel did Sarah Palin a terrible disservice in this instance.

Over the past few months, Mrs. Palin has done a significant amount of work on her presentation. She has become much more clear and concise in her statements, and seems to be working hard to refine her dialect.

I frequently hear radio advertisements with Palin in support of John McCain (a whole different topic), and while her voice is still distinct, she has clearly made changes in her cadence, and seems to be making a conscious effort to lose some of her "folksy" edge that some found questionable.

Additionally, she has now made quite a few appearances on various Fox News Channel shows as a political contributor, and I believe the same changes can be seen during these discussions. This is very important, because although she may be prepped with some questions and information, there is no way for her to be completely scripted in these situations.

Fox News could have easily avoided this situation. Had they made an effort to contact a few people, they would have gained permission to use these segments without backlash. Otherwise, they might have simply given Palin the opportunity to conduct her own interviews, which would have given her more credibility.

Instead, Sarah Palin today is once again being unjustly scathed by the leftist media.

Be sure to check out Right Klik's post on the subject - it seems LL Cool J wanted to directly connect with as many people as possible, including RK! And there's more at Memeorandum.