On Nov. 19, Dan Gainor, Vice President of Business & Culture for the Media Research Center, appeared on FNC's "America's Newsroom" to debate with Julia Piscitelli, a Democratic Media Consultant, about how the media has treated Sarah Palin's new book.
FNC's Alisyn Camerota focused specifically on the Associated Press's decision to assign 11 reporters to fact check Palin's book "Going Rogue." Camerota noted that "similar books, by President Obama, Vice President Biden, even Bill and Hillary Clinton, did not get that same kind of scrutiny."
Gainor agreed with Camerota and said that "this isn't a fact check; it's a hack check." As proof, he pointed to the AP's history of fact checking books.
"You have to go back in to early 2008 to even find an AP reference about fact checking even one thing in a book," Gainor said. "To use 11 people in a day of limited news budgets just shows that their priorities - where they are. They want to take her down."
Gainor also mentioned that, despite AP's greatest efforts, the 11 reporters couldn't find any significant complaints.
"They didn't even really disagree with her," Gainor said. "They came up with 12 points - significant things like, oh, she says she usually stays in inexpensive hotels. They agreed then point out one time in New York she'd stayed at a more expensive one. C'mon, Alisyn, I mean you must have stayed at some pricey hotels in New York. Try to find a cheap one."
Gainor also pointed to Palin's book reviews as proof of the media's bias.
"Look back at how AP covered Barack Obama - ‘The Audacity of Hope,'" Gainor said. "They referred to it as ‘the phenomenon of Obama-mania is about to hit Chicago.' For Sarah Palin, they talk about her book 'going rogue with facts.'"
