Next week I plan to write more extensively on Big Hollywood about the many bizarre behind the scenes occurrences and things learned during the initial media promotion tour for my new film “Media Malpractice… How Obama Got Elected and Palin Was Targeted.” However, one episode was so strange and important, that I need to briefly touch on it today.
This dealt with the set-up segment to my appearance on the “Today Show” (video below) yesterday. The “Today Show” was given exclusive access to the unreleased portions of my Sarah Palin interview and NBC reporter Norah O’Donnell was given these clips and chosen to do the story on the Palin interview that would air just before and lead into my interview with Matt Lauer.
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What O’Donnell chose to air was striking for two reasons. First, it so badly missed all the best Palin sound bites I can only conclude (despite any logic to this theory) that NBC did so on purpose. No one could be so incompetent as to take 43 minutes of great stuff and literally use the very first answer in the interview (which was hardly noteworthy) and none of the best clips. Second, O’Donnell’s editorial choices went out of their way to diminish and ignore Governor Palin’s very credible objections to very specific episodes of media malpractice. But the news media, especially NBC, trying to make Palin look bad is hardly new.
That NBC allowed Norah O’Donnell to do the piece to begin with is interesting. Last month when snippets of the Palin interview were released, she and I had a memorable on-air confrontation that did not go as planned.
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Even more extraordinary than this conflict of interest is that just after our confrontation, O’Donnell said on-air that that Palin had called Barack Obama a “terrorist.”
Now in a media world that was remotely sane, O’Donnell would have been fired for making such a false statement. Instead, she ends up dictating which Palin clips will be seen on the “Today Show,” the largest audience likely to ever see them. And while I was tempted to address this during my interview with Lauer, I refrained (a split-second decision I may end up regretting), and instead chose to confront O’Donnell directly when she interviewed me later in the day on MSNBC.
The video speaks for itself:
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To me, this tells you everything you need to know about why I had to make this film.
Related:
Exclusive: Big Hollywood first look at “Media Malpractice”
A Revealing Morning With Sarah Palin
Reaction To My Palin Interview Proves The Point