Reporters Say Sarah Palin’s a Moron in Front of Fox’s Live Mic; Wingnuts Seek Blood

A Fox News affiliate is struggling to defend itself against charges that it exposed its viewers to reality (via):

Thousands of people from California and around the world tuned in to FOX40.com to listen to a speech prepared by Sarah Palin Friday evening from the campus of California State University, Stanislaus. During that stream, other reporters in the media overflow room were heard on our microphone, due to the unusual circumstances of how we managed to bring the live feed.

Following Sarah Palin’s address from CSU Stanislaus, several reporters were again heard making comments about the speech that some viewers considered inappropriate and unprofessional.

I can’t imagine a more serious offense. You can catch the comments here. They can be summed up as a bunch of reporters bitching about having to say something intelligent about a speech so vapid that it approached incoherence. One says it reminded him of a college kid padding an essay with a bunch of irrelevant quotes in order to seem like he or she did the reading.

As you might imagine, this just proved the dread MSM’s insidious “liberal bias” and whatnot, and the intrepid bloggers of Wingnuttia  apparently stayed up all night to get to the bottom of the story. Here’s a taste of the excited outrage:

Stay tuned as determined Tweeters try and find out who it was making the after-speech remarks. Find it hard to believe that Fox40 didn’t have someone there directly monitoring the feed – this was a pretty big deal tonight in CA.

It was a momentous occasion for the Golden State!

Update 4 – 1:24 AM: Fox40 denies it was them:

NOTE: The comments you heard in the media room were from reporters at other outlets and newspapers and were not from FOX40 journalists.

Hmmm. If true, this makes what was said even worse. Camera/audio guys are one thing, but MSM journalists saying crap like this is something else. Tammy Bruce is all over it right now. If anyone can get to the bottom of it, it’s her.

Do I have the easiest job in the world? Well, here’s Tammy Bruce:

Update 6 – 3:00 AM: Just listened to the audio at the time mark Bruce noted. Many MSMers are jawing about how ’stupid’ Palin supposedly is, but then what I believe to be a Fox40 guy apologizes for feed going down – remember: Fox40 was running the feed. The SAME voice then says something like “You guys are gonna have a tough job making a story out of that” – an implication that it was an “empty speech.” MSMers were saying/insinuating that Palin had to put “a lot of quotes” in her speech to fill time, etc.

Is this a gotcha moment for the new media vs. old media? You betcha.

You betcha!

The thing I find so hilarious about this is that everyone outside of Sarah Palin’s relatively small number of loyalists takes it as a given that she’s clueless. I’d be surprised to learn of professional journalists who’ve covered lots of politicians, some of whom no doubt knew what they were talking about, holding a different opinion.

Palin’s fans have bought her branding, and think they’re the only “real Americans” in the country. Meanwhile,  actual real Americans (including, it seems, reporters), think quite little of the half-term governor’s insights.

February:

More than half the nation – 55% – see Sarah Palin unfavorably, and 71% believe the “Going Rogue” author is not qualified to be President, according to an ABC News/Washington Post poll