John Ziegler: “AP Blows it in Palin Book Analysis”

I have signed a nondisclosure agreement with Harper Collins regarding Sarah Palin’s new book so until it comes out I am limited to discussing only what is currently in the public domain. However, I simply must respond to the Associated Press “report” on Going Rogue.

Even grading on the “Palin Scale” of media bias, the AP’s synopsis is a joke.

Based on how the AP sees the book, you would think that the most significant disclosure is that Palin had to pay back the McCain campaign for part of her vetting because they lost, followed closely by the fact that she felt “badgered” by Katie Couric and didn’t get her way on election night.

In short, the book that the AP supposedly read sounds like it is full of self-serving whining and almost totally lacking in substance. That is not a remotely accurate evaluation of Going Rogue.

First of all, there are far more interesting and important revelations in the book (I have noticed in my own experience with my film “Media Malpractice” that one of the most insidious forms of media bias against conservative projects is to paint them as boring) that the AP has for some reason chosen to totally ignore.

Second of all, Palin’s analysis of what really happened with the now infamous (and totally misunderstood) Couric and Gibson interviews could not be LESS whiny — it is instead full of fact-filled writing that finally provides the full story of what really happened in the way that only a book can do (my documentary, which I am told Palin handed to her collaborator and said “here, this is what happened” could only provide a foundation of understanding that is magnified in much greater detail in Going Rogue).

My greatest regret (and I have many) in the course of making and promoting my documentary of the news coverage of the 2008 election is that I completely underestimated how impossible it is for a conservative (especially one as hated by the news media as Sarah Palin) to correct the historical record about media coverage because it is so easy for the very same media to portray you as whining.

I was naïve. I thought that telling the real truth of what actually happened would be seen as intrinsically valuable and eminently appropriate. Governor Palin instinctively knew different, telling me several times before during and after my interview with her that she was wary of being wrongly perceived in that way, and knew that she would have to thread a very small needle. I wish I had done a better job of combating that totally incorrect perception and perhaps that is why I am so sensitive to the subject when it appears the AP is not so subtly laying the groundwork for a resurrection of that bogus charge.

The bottom line is that the AP is either purposefully or out of their own profound unconscious bias, badly missing the most important points of Sarah Palin’s book. Considering the role the mainstream media played in creating the need for her to write this book in the first place, that should not be a big surprise.

If you are interested in this most amazing of all modern political stories, I urge you to read the book for yourself and not let those who want Palin destroyed to continue to dictate your perceptions of her. Her book may be the only way for you to know the real Sarah Palin. Don’t let the AP read it for you.

In 2008, John Ziegler wrote, directed and produced the documentary “Blocking the Path to 9/11″ and created www.HowObamaGotElected.com as a precursor to his next film, “Media Malpractice… How Obama Got Elected,” which came out in early 2009 and screened in over 20 theaters. A trailer video for that documentary has been viewed by at least 2.3 million people on You Tube.

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