Laura Novak and Professor Scharlott have very interesting conversation about Sarah Palin's photograph with reporter Andrea Gusty taken on April 13, 2008.

From Laura's blog:

LN: As I wrote in the previous post, I tried to contact everyone involved in these photos with the exception of the unidentified cameraman in the white shirt, and Mrs. Palin herself. Dan Carpenter and Gusty didn’t respond to my multiple and repeated requests. Bill McAllister and I went back and forth on four sets of emails until he outlined requirements for me that I would not meet. So, here we are.

BS: Can you tell us what those requirements were?

LN: I cannot. I assured him that our emails were private and confidential, and I have to honor that.
BS: Okay, so let’s get down to facts. The Gusty photo, which the McCain campaign people pointed to as definitive evidence that Palin had truly been pregnant, did a marvelous job of silencing most critics who claimed Palin faked the birth.

When questions about its authenticity arose, two “investigators” (graduate students, I imagine) of FactCheck.org, an offshoot of the Annenberg School of Communication, looked into the matter by calling Andrea Gusty. And Gusty told them that the picture was real, not “Photoshopped”, that she thought she had the only copy of it (implying it was taken with her camera), that she was surprised to see it on the Internet and that she had no idea how it got there. What do you think of the investigation conducted by FactCheck, Laura?

LN: If this is fact checking, then tell me anything you want, Brad, and I’ll tell the world that you told me and therefore, it is true. Apparently they did not ask why the picture was taken in the first place, whether anyone else had access to her camera, or whether Palin’s pregnancy had advanced dramatically in the previous month, as publicly available photos would suggest.

Gusty did say she saw the baby a week later, which she said she took as proof that Mrs. Palin gave birth to it. And perhaps at the time, it was enough proof. But I wonder how they all feel now in retrospect.

Laura and Brad continue to discuss the possible reasons for the picture having been taken, the possibility that it was staged, and some of the inconsistencies within the photograph itself.

I have never been particularly good with photographic analysis so I will leave that discussion to them, and if you click the link above you can enjoy their conversation for yourself.

There ARE a few things which I can add to this topic however. The first would be to provide this video of a newscast that Gusty produced to address the speculation surrounding this video, back in 2009.



I can also reveal that I was able to track down a source with inside knowledge of what happened that day.

What I learned was that the cameraman with the rumpled shirt is named Scott Favorite. That Gusty brought the newly released book Sarah: How a Hockey Mom Turned the Political Establishment Upside Down, and got Sarah to sign it for her. And that Gusty was a BIG fan of the Governor, and treated her more like a celebrity than a local politician.

My source also said that the date, April 13, 2008, is accurate.