February 02, 2010
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Fox to air Palin's Tea Party address
Fox News will broadcast Sarah Palin’s keynote address to the National Tea Party Convention live on Saturday night, allowing millions of viewers to see the main attraction of a gathering that was once criticized for barring the press.
The network, which pays Palin as a political analyst and is considered the favored network of conservatives, will carry Palin’s speech during Geraldo at Large in the 9 p.m. hour, a network spokeswoman told POLITICO.
On Monday, convention organizers announced that they had credentialed Fox as well as CNN, Reuters TV and Pajamas Media, and was working with them to facilitate video coverage of select parts of the convention. But neither the organizers, nor the media outlets, announced specific coverage plans.
Representatives for CNN, which has the second widest reach among credentialed broadcast outlets to Fox, did not immediately respond to an email asking whether they intended to broadcast Palin’s speech or any other portions of the convention live.
Palin’s speech, secured through a $100,000 fee paid by convention organizers to Palin’s speaking bureau, is seen as a bid by the former Alaska governor to position herself as the de facto leader of the tea party movement, for whom she is already a hero.
Two of the convention’s other top attractions — Reps. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) and Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) — pulled out of the convention last week amidst controversy related to the convention’s for-profit structure, steep ticket prices and the personal feuds embroiling its organizers. It also raised eyebrows initially by limiting media access to five outlets its organizers deemed sympathetic to the tea party movement: Fox, The Wall Street Journal, Breitbart.com, Townhall.com and World Net Daily.
Lead organizer Judson Phillips on Monday touted the move to open the convention to more broadcast outlets as a rebuke to his critics. “Working with our media relations team, the new media and our key broadcast journalists, we kept our plans close to the vest,” he said in a statement. “Obviously, we believe that the delegates and banquet attendees are going to enjoy the networking and the excitement of being here directly. However, as we are all committed to grassroots activism, we wanted to share this event with those who could not come to Nashville.”
-- Kenneth P. Vogel
UPDATE: CNN will be airing a documentary on Martin Luther King Jr. on Saturday night, part of the network's plans for Black History Month. However, CNN will have a live camera in the hall in order to run excerpts and plans on sending three correspondents and one political contributor to Nashville.
C-SPAN is trying to carry it live.
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