Lavi blog

Cable news hosts cover Palin more since leaving office

The Cutline isn't counting on the media to ever really agree to aIndeed, thebetween the two sides shows no sign of weakening.

Today, the Hollywood Reporter addressed columnist Dana Milbank's recent pledge for a "Palin-free February" and considers whether cable news hostsespecially the liberal ones on MSNBC

One might assume that cable hosts are talking about Palinherself a paid Fox News contributorless since she left office (July 2009) or was campaigning for the vice presidency (November 2008). But the Reporter found that's not the case.

At Fox and MSNBC, every major program at those networks has been ratcheting up the Palin coverage, according to LexisNexis. In 2008, Olbermann mentioned her in 67 news segments, a year later it was 146 and a year after that 179. In 2009, Hardball ran 141 stories mentioning Palin and a year later it ran 184. Over at Fox, Hannity ran 94 stories mentioning Palin in 2009 and 145 the following year. The O'Reilly Factor ran 82 Palin stories in 2009 and 108 in 2010.

(Photo Palin sitting down with ABC's Robin Roberts in her home studio in Wasilla Alaska on Dec. 16, 2010: AP/ABC, Matt Hage)