Sarah Palin has always had beef with the “lamestream media,” but she started getting more specific about that beef Sunday night when she criticized Politico’s use of anonymous sources in an article about Republicans looking to put the kibosh on her presidential chances—our two cents are here. Today, Palin has taken aim again at Politico for its photo editing choices on Jake Sherman and John Bresnahan’s story, “Michele Bachmann bid adds drama to the GOP leadership race.”
The “pic” in question was the one below, which initially ran with the Bachmann article. It comes courtesy of The Daily Caller, which has made much of the story.
After seeing the imapge this morning, @SarahPalinUSA tweeted:
Press: why use this Bachmann pic in LEADERSHIP story?Ur 2 transparent “@politico: Bachmann leadership bid adds drama http://politi.co/d46HwR
Palin then wrote an e-mail to The Daily Caller explaining her beef:
“A photo of Rep Bachmann in a Leadership article [with] the title including a ‘drama’ angle … showing her being made up with cosmetics?!”…
…“Would they do this to a male candidate? Kinda’ like the Newsweek cover of me in running shorts. Kinda’ like all these recent articles that mention what I’m wearing or not wearing, yet not one mention of anyone else’s garb in the same article. It gets old, it’s boringly transparent, it’s beyond subtle.”
Palin has a point, even if she makes it beyond unsubtly. The picture was unnecessarily and pretty brazenly sexist. And Politico eventually agreed, switching it for the one below later in the morning (a good move: we would have hated to see them level the playing field by showing a pic of Mitch McConnell in the makeup chair). Executive editor Jim VandeHei told the Daily Caller, “We agreed it wasn’t the best choice of photos, so we changed it.”
Interestingly, nothing on the Politico story explains the switch for those who might have visited the site this morning and come back for a second read this afternoon. Not “2 transparent” after all, we guess.
Joel Meares is a former CJR assistant editor.