It has been widely reported that Sarah Palin has yet to give a news conference or even answer a few questions from the traveling press that follow her from city to city on her plane. But, today the Palin camp went to new lengths to control the media, which is covering the GOP Vice-Presidential nominee.

It was decided by the campaign that today’s meetings with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Colombian president Alvaro Uribe, and Former Secretary of State Dr. Henry Kissinger would be pooled. This means only one television network with their camera and producer, plus a print reporter, and wire reporters would be let in at the beginning of the meeting and then be ushered out before the leaders and Palin began talking. This is common practice in presidential campaigns, but this morning a little over one hour before the meetings would begin the pool network television producer and print poolers were told they were not allowed to enter the meetings.

This means that the Palin camp has the benefit of pictures of her shaking hands with world leaders and have that video broadcast all over the world, but there would be no risk of her having to answer even one question from a reporter at the beginning of the meetings. It is many television network’s policy, including Fox News Channel to not provide a camera if an editorial presence is not allowed in. Once the campaign realized that these pictures would not be seen they relented, but the print pool is still not allowed to enter the Karzai event, which is about to begin.

Labels: secrecy