Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin blasted the news this morning media as the "corrupt bastards club" after the Joe Miller campaign released audio that shows reporters conspiring to smear Alaska's Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate.
A press release from the Miller camapaign describes what happened:
In an apparent accidental voice mail message left on the cell phone of Joe Miller’s spokesperson, Randy DeSoto, what is believed to be the news director for CBS Anchorage affiliate KTVA, along with assignment editor Nick McDermott, and other reporters, openly discuss creating, if not fabricating, two stories about Republican nominee for U.S. Senate, Joe Miller. The voice mail message was later authenticated by Mr. McDermott, who sent a text to DeSoto stating “Damn iPhone … I left you a long message. I thought I hung up. Sorry.”
“Frankly, when I first heard this I was shocked,” said DeSoto. “Though a bit garbled at times, there are disturbing comments in this conservation that never should have occurred.”
In the first discussion, the KTVA reporters discuss getting a list of Miller campaign supporters in order to ‘find’ a “child molester.” “You have to find that one person,” says the male reporter, to laughter in the news room. The reporters at KTVA then discuss creating a “Rand Paul” incident at the then upcoming Miller Rally (held on October 28, 2010) and hoping for violence so that they can “send out a tweet” and “Facebook” that “Miller got punched” at the rally.
This morning, Palin took to Twitter to voice her outrage over the incident:
SarahPalinUSA Corrupt bastards. CBS/media plot against Joe Miller before our Anchorage rally Thurs Kinda'what I've put up w for 2 yrs http://bit.ly/cmbzMr
20 minutes ago via Twitter for BlackBerry®
And a few minutes later:
SarahPalinUSA Corrupt Bastards Club. RT "@BigJournalism: CBS Affiliate KTVA Reporters Taped Conspiring Against Joe Miller Campaign http://bit.ly/ac6Mxz"
13 minutes ago via Twitter for BlackBerry®
Link to YouTube recording of reporters' conversation left on Miller campaign cellphone.
Transcript of conversation (via RedCounty.com):
FEMALE REPORTER: That’s up to you because you're the expert, but that’s what I would do...I’d wait until you see who showed up because that indicates we already know something...
[Laughter]
[INAUDIBLE]
FEMALE REPORTER: Child molesters...
MALE REPORTER: Oh yeah... can you repeat Joe Miller’s...uh... list of people, campaign workers, which one's the molester?
[INAUDIBLE]
FEMALE VOICE: We know that out of all the people that will show up tonight, at least one of them will be a registered sex offender.
[Laughter]
MALE REPORTER: You have to find that one person...
[INAUDIBLE]
FEMALE REPORTER: And the one thing we can do is ....we won’t know....we won’t know but if there is any sort of chaos whatsoever we can put out a twitter/facebook alert: saying what the... ‘Hey Joe Miller punched at rally.’
FEMALE REPORTER: Kinda like Rand Paul...I like that.
[Laughter]
FEMALE REPORTER: That’s a good one.
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http://www.redcounty.com/content/did-alaskas-media-plot-against-joe-miller