ABC News lands Palin's first TV interview

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(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-09-08 09:21

NEW YORK -- Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin has agreed to sit down with ABC news later this week for her first television interview since John McCain chose her as his running mate more than a week ago.

US Republican presidential nominee Senator John McCain (R-AZ) and Republican vice-presidential nominee Alaska Governor Sarah Palin (R) take the stage at a campaign stop in Cedarburg, Wisconsin September 5, 2008. [Agencies]

ABC would not release any details about where and when interviewer Charles Gibson would question Palin; a McCain-Palin adviser had said earlier Sunday that the interview was expected to take place later this week in Alaska. The interview with Palin was confirmed Friday, ABC News spokesman Jeffrey Schneider said.

The first-term Alaska governor has given speeches alongside McCain since becoming his surprise pick on August 29. But Democrats have already begun to question why Palin has not been put before reporters to answer questions.

McCain, who appeared on CBS' "Face the Nation" Sunday, said he expected Palin to start doing interviews "in the next few days."

McCain campaign manager Rick Davis complained that the media has focused too much on 44-year-old Palin's personal life. Many of those stories came after McCain's campaign announced that Palin's unwed 17-year-old daughter was pregnant. News reports also have questioned her record as a reformer in Alaska.

"She's not scared to answer questions," Davis said on "Fox News Sunday." "But you know what? We run our campaign, not the news media. And we'll do things on our timetable."

The interview is a coup for Gibson, who also had the only sit-down with McCain during the Republican National Convention. During that interview, he did not question McCain about Palin's family.

ABC News spokesman Jeffrey Schneider said he did not believe Gibson's stated stance about family questions was key to securing the interview.

Palin won over Republican loyalists with her speech last week at the Republican convention in St. Paul, Minnesota, which drew more than 40 million television viewers. But Democrats and even some Republicans have questioned whether she is ready to answer unscripted questions about national and international issues.

"Why would we want to throw Sarah Palin into a cycle of piranhas called the news media that have nothing better to ask questions about than her personal life and her children?" Davis said. "So until at which point in time we feel like the news media is going to treat her with some level of respect and deference, I think it would be foolhardy to put her out into that kind of environment."

Palin's Democratic counterpart, Sen. Joe Biden, a veteran of the Sunday talk show circuit, challenged Palin to sit for interviews.

"Eventually she's going to have to sit in front of you like I'm doing and have done," Biden said on "Meet the Press" on NBC. "Eventually she's going to have to answer questions and not be sequestered. Eventually she's going to have to answer questions about her record."

Gibson, in the Web log posted the day after Palin's speech, said he thought it was a very successful night for her.

"The difficult hurdles are to come, I think: The first interviews she'll face on issues; the first time she's closely questioned on positions she's taken in her state; and then, of course, the debate with Joe Biden," he wrote.