Palin, Post-Election

I am finding that reading newspapers and online articles is much less exciting and gossip-filled now that the election is over. Still, I found an article on the New York Times website published today entitled “Rehashing ’08 and Rehearsing, Perhaps, for ’12” (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/12/us/politics/12watch.html?ref=us). The article chronicles Sarah Palin’s post-election “speed date with history,” as she relentlessly moves from one reporter to the next to tell her side of the story after all is said and done. I think what is perhaps most interesting about this article is that Palin admits that, after all the attacks on her character and family by the media, her “trust in the news media…has been shaken.”
I find it extremely interesting that after the election has been decided, journalists are willing to give Palin more sympathy in their writing. Perhaps this is because she did not win the election (thank goodness!), or perhaps because she did not give too many news interviews to journalists during the election, but in any case, the shift in media attention from ridicule and anger to sympathy and understanding is quite interesting. By the same token, Sarah Palin, although admittedly less trusting of the media than she was before the election, is now seemingly seeking out every journalist she can get her hands on to invite them to Alaska for dinner and to discuss her plans for the future. Clearly, Palin understands the power of the media and how it can potentially help her in her possible efforts for the presidential nomination in the next four years. It’s funny how individuals and the media can have such love-hate relationships that reveal themselves in public forum, don’t you think?