Palin’s Couric interview became fodder for memorable sketches on Saturday Night Live but the fallout also led to the political divide that defines media consumption today. Palin wrote off the press as condescending, mean-spirited, untrustworthy and out to get people like her (non-elites who would rather hunt than read.) People who saw themselves in her began to write the press off and the rise of social media finally made it easier for them to do so. (2008 was the first presidential campaign in which Twitter existed.)
When Palin first started avoiding traditional media, the thinking was that no high-profile politician could flourish without media gatekeepers. There was precedent. While George W. Bush was famously wounded by an embarrassing sit down interview illuminating his lack of foreign policy chops during the 2000 campaign, he couldn’t simply steer clear of media he didn’t like, or trust, afterward. That simply wasn’t an option in the pre-social media days. But while she did sign a contract with Fox News, Palin became the first prominent political personality to use social media to strategically avoid media she didn’t want to engage with while still maintaining a significant public profile (and without the perch of the presidency which guaranteed visibility for Bush). A 2009 Politico article highlighted Palin’s outsized influence on the United States’ health care debate using social media (she popularized the term “death panels” in a Facebook post) despite “making almost no public appearances and successfully avoiding the media outlets that are clamoring to talk to her.” So while the Obama campaign’s win proved that social media can help mobilize voters, Palin’s loss and subsequent legacy proved something equally significant: that those who didn’t trust media gatekeepers no longer had to rely on them to reach fans or respond to enemies.
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