it would be easy for me to recite all the sensational claims about drug use, affairs in the new book about the former governor of alaska. probably would be good for our ratings. new york times critic janet maslin said this about "the rogue." mr. mcginniss used his time in alaska to talk to people like, one resident and a friend. he was featured on "today" in a piece by savannah guthrie. >> he described a rocky palin marriage with todd and sarah fighting and threatening divorce, something they have denied in the past. another bomb shell, he writes todd and sarah have both used cocaine in the past, a claim that was not verified. >> you talk to somebody who snorted it with her and many of todd's friends who describe him as having been on the end of the straw frequently in his youth. i'm not saying todd and sarah palin today abuse cocaine or even use it, but it is no question that they both did at one point in their lives. >> reporter: he quote friends who speak of a sexual encounter palin had with glen rice in 1987 while she was a sports reporter for a local anchorage station prior to her marriage. >> how should journalists handle the contents of the book? steve roberts, professor of journal ichl and media ethics at george washington university. and senior editor at national review. steve, in the first 24 hours, nobody has seen this book. lots of websites were trumpeting the sleaziest allegations. why? >> ratings. traffic. there is a conspiracy between the sarah palins and the donald trumps of the world and a lot of websites who, let's be honest. you need the eyeballs to sell advertising. media is under tremendous revenue pressures. >> and old fashioned notions like checking it out falls by the wayside? >> that often happens. i would give know mcginniss a failing ethics grade in my class but it is pushed by tremendous pressure and demand. >> is the sarah palin and alleged drug use, alleged marital problems, or trig isn't her baby, is that too irresistible for media? >> of course. you can taub about sarah palin, the contents of her bathroom medicine cabinet and we go after it. she's a celebrity, not a politician. she is judged by the rules when people go in to report about her. >> even celebrities are entitled to fair treatment from the media. a statement from todd about this book. this is a man who has been relentlessly stalking my family to the point of moving in right next door on us to satisfy his creepy obsession with my wife. his book is full of disgusting lies, innuendo and smears. to report on what sarah palin did when she was 23, if she did or didn't have a one-night encounter with a basketball star, does the media have a different standard for sarah palin? >> look, this is an irrelevant story about increasingly irrelevant figures. one wonders what it is doing in the news. you can't even denounce the book easily without retailing the stories inside it. the new york times review was very tough, appropriately tough on the book, but at the same time it repeats every one of the not terribly well verified stories. >> look, she bears some guilt here. i think the book is a heap of trash. but she's played the game herself. she played the celebrity game. she wants to be a celebrity. she's been on reality tv. she change it is standard herself. >> we talked about the bus tour and why we cover it. it's fair to say that. the palins obviously didn't want the book written but a fascinating debate at the miami herald where a sports writer named armando selguero wrote this. the herald played up the glen rice alleged incident. do we know this story to be true? are we certain it is true because we have done the work? did anyone actually try to confirm this story before giving it herald front page credibility? did anyone call glenn rice? he lives in miami, you know. is it now okay to repeat any report from the national enquirer on the front page of the herald's website without actually reporting even one fact independently? >> the answer is no, it is not okay. >> it happened. >> it does happen. the dynamic is not just the pressure for eyeballs. there is a web culture with a different standard from traditional media and a notion of if it is a buzz, if it is out there, we can repeat it without independently checking it. that is an ethical problem for a lot of people. >> not just the web culture. given all the unnamed sources, should "today" have put mcginniss on? >> i don't think so. it's not a question of whether these things are verified and check out. i don't see the relevance of this rice story from prehistory. >> even if it were true? >> it's none of our business. >> same for past cocaine use? >> i would say, you know, look, i didn't see a ton of scrutiny given to obama's cocaine use. people accepted his take on that story because his political stance or whatever. i think the same should be extended to palin. >> i have no idea if the cocaine allegation is true or not. mcginniss will be on all kinds of programs. piers morgan is having him on. tv has an idea that if it is a book it has a stature that allows it to be covered but there are crappy books out there. >> there is an idea they fact check and then it has a certain gravitasse which isn't true. the same could be said if it's in new york times it's true. newspapers don't have fact checking. you have to trust the author. >> there are editors who can say, you don't have the story nailed down. >> presumably so do book editors. you have to have a certain amount of faith in the author. if his publishers do. >> i worked for the new york times for 25 years. there are editors. there are filters. there are standards. there are processes your material goes through. what is increasingly happened in this web culture is there are no filters or editors. many people say, this is great. it's the wild west and there are more voices. but what has been almost entirely eliminated in n many ways is the notion of accountability and verification. in a lot of the web publications. >> but we are not talking web. we are talking about a book. >> covered by the web. >> it's covered by everything. >> i think mcdprks i ncginnis i on his previous books. >> he was accused of deception, had an out of court settlement. what bothered me most of all was the way in which the web ran with this before anyone has seen the book. it wasn't like an editor said, i think there are reasonable allegations here. >> doonsbury had it out and the chicago trib didn't run it, but everyone else did. including the post. >> every website, even the most serious ones have links to jennifer aniston's latest pictures or kim kardashian and palin is more like jennifer aniston and kim kardashian today than like mitt romney or any serious political figure. >> there seems to be an under current that because palin is more celebrity than politician though we don't know for sure still if she'll run for president but there are different standards. i will push back and say to run with the stuff -- >> i don't think there should be. by think there are. >> in the case of doonesbury, gary trudeau had the book in advance. the chicago tribune killing it, how many people did it stop from reading it? you can get it online. there is news of another book called "confidence men" about the obama white house. already the white house is pushing back. larry summers, all officials quoted in the book who are denying what they are quoted as saying. this is different it seems to me. suskind had the cooperation of the white house and interviewed president obama. sit in a different category? >> sure. he's also in a different category. ron suskind has a reputation as a reliable reporter. former wall street journal reporter. even there, there is the implication that he's blown up some of the stories into feuds and has taken the extreme version of events. they are different. obama white house is a serious subject. sarah palin is not a serious subject in anything like the same way. >> from what you can tell in some cases it looks like, yes, there were casual conversations. perhaps he got them from a third party and repeated the quotes. it makes it look like there was some brug irritation and people would riot. >> suskind quoted people directly, interviewed a lot of white house officials. i called barack obama and he said he can't comment yet because he's going on "today." >> donna is denying she gave the quote. that is a direct quote. so at a certain point i think one or both parties has to say, okay, is it okay to put this on the record. >> who said sarah palin isn't a serious subject. >> me. >> what do you mean? she was a vice president yal nominee. this is a serious book about her. >> i'm saying she has cast herself in in m ways much more as a celebrity, a reality tv star. >> she's more donald trump. >> she defined herself as less serious, not the rest of us. >> which still doesn't give any author or writer or journalist the right to publish crap. >> i agree completely. >> we have a rare moment of consensus. thanks for joining us. when we come back, rick perry on the firing line at the cnn presidential debate. does the media have it in for this guy? 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[ female announcer ] phillips' colon health. z. announcer: when life's this hard, it's no wonder 7,000 students drop out every school day. visit boostup.org and help kids in your community stay in school. when i was sitting down to write about the cnn presidential debate there was no way around the lead. michele bachmann and the others were ganging up on rick perry. but they had company. if you look at wolf blitzer's questions they singled out the governor even when addressing perry's rivals. >> governor perry, speaking of social security you said in the past it's a ponzi scheme, an absolute failure, unconstitutional but today you wrote an article in usa today saying it must be saved and reformed. >> as you well know you signed an executive order requiring little girls 11 and 12-year-old girls to get a vaccine to deal with a sexually transmitted disease that could lead to cervical cancer. was that a mistake? >> congresswoman, you know that perry said ben bernanke should be tried for treason. >> governor romney you said governor perry's position on social security is unacceptable and could even obliterate the republican party. >> so the media, not just cnn but msnbc and other organizations singling out perry for harsh treatment. ben smith from politico joins us and jeff zelany from the new york times. you were at the debate. with so many questions about rick perry, so what do you think about what perry said about x, blitzer guaranteed all the stories would be about perry. >> he was in the center of the stage for a reason. interesting how the front runners are in the center. part of it is that he's the newest person in the race. he is the story line in the race. we can argue if it's fair or not. i'm sure senator santorum and ron paul don't think it's fair. jon huntsman was barely mentioned at all. voters want to know more about rick perry because he's unknown because he has not been running as long as these people. >> i have no problem keeping the spotlight on the newcomer, looking at his texas record. there has been story after story about him in the new york times, washington post, politico and elsewhere. >> we are neutral observers but this is a cost perry took on when he decided not to enter six, eight months ago and jumped in now. that means questions asked of every candidate but they will be asked all at once of him. mitt romney has been doing talk shows for nine months which allowed him to keep a low profile because he's been asked about health care a ton already. perry dooifd in and has done no challenging interviews on tv or with print reporters. so when somebody gets him there is a list of questions. >> he did an interview with time for a cover story this week. brian williams took heat at the debate for asking this question. let's roll it. >> your state has executed 234 death row inmates, more than any other governor in modern times. have you -- [ applause ] >> have you struggled to sleep at night with the idea that any one of those might have been innocent? >> no, sir. i have never struggled with that at all. >> anything unfair about the question? >> i think bringing up executions certainly isn't unfair at all. i was surprised when he said struggled to sleep at night. his point was, you know, the question of if any of the people executed had been innocent. but the whole matter is overtaken by the applause in the room and the audience watching the debate rose up in applause and then he followed up with that question. i'm not sure about the sleep at night. not how i would have phrased it. >> ben smith, some critics are questioning why cnn partnered with the tea party express. some people say the network is trying to build conservative street cred. anything give you pause about the partnership? >> that sounds like a reasonable explanation, but the tea party is clearly a big force, particularly in republican primaries. it made sense both structurally and also for the purposes of television drama to have people who are seen as being central and active in the republican primary asking questions and in the mix. >> cnn washington bureau chief sam feist said the tea party is such a force that it made sense to include it when you talk about building drama, i'm all for audience members asking questions. i don't think journalists have a monopoly on wisdom but many of the questions were so vague as to be useless. what would you do to get the economy moving forward? what is your plan to reduce the cost of health care? there is a reason journal is ask narrower questions than that. did that help the debate? >> i viewed the questions from voters as a topic to discuss. i thought wolf blitzer did a good job honing in on the questions. he was basically asking the questions. the voters were setting the themes for the questions. the majority of the questions in that debate were asked by wolf little bitter, not voters. >> and following up on tea party questions as well. want to turn now to a moment that got a lot of play. that was michele bachmann. we want to show you what she said in the debate about something rick perry did in texas regarding vaccines against cervical cancer and the next morning she was on "today." we'll take a look at matt lauer's question. take a look. >> i'm a mom of three children. to have innocent little 12-year-old girls be forced to have a government injection through an executive order is just flat out wrong. little girls who have a negative reaction to this potentially dangerous drug don't get a mulligan. >> do you feel he placed the health and safety of young girls in the state of texas behind or below the need for campaign funds? >> well, i will tell you that i had a mother last night come up to me here in tampa, florida, after the debate. she told me her little daughter took that vaccine, that injection and she suffered from mental retardation thereafter. >> the problem with that answer is that there is no scientific evidence that these injections are dangerous, as she said in the debate or cause mental retardation yet matt lauer didn't follow up. took 24 hours for media to bring the facts to people. shouldn't we move more quickly with that kind of inflammatory charge? >> as soon as that was online people started asking questions. i know a guy from an autism group sent me an e-mail later that day saying, this is outrageous and dangerous because it's playing to the vaccine fear that a lot of researchers believe getting kids actually killed. >> your newspaper in the new york times had a good story on the facts involved or lack of facts in the case of what she said. cnn did, nightly news did a good fact check. i have a feeling a lot of organizations were more interested in perry and bachmann going toe to toe than in sorting out what she said. >> that's probably true. it was a dramatic moment. all of us were waiting to see how she would respond. if she would aggressively respond to governor perry. that's part of it. i think a bigger thing, in the moment it looked great for congresswoman bachmann. she was tough and responded well. but like everything else once you inspect it a little bit more, even some of her own advisers were wringing their hands. she seems to say often the last thing that was said to her. whoever this woman in the audience was. i'm sure it happened. >> that doesn't mean it true. >> and we have the responsibility to check it out. >> in the case of rick perry, are you saying that he got in the race late so there is a t e telescoping of the process? i'm sure people think reporters don't identify with this cowboy cultural candidate. >> the texas press has been examining him most intensely fight now. i think there are a ton of questions that need to be answered quickly because the vote is soon. in fact, he runs a very secretive administration, just as a matter of reality. they delete e-mails every week. they go to great lengths to prevent his schedule from being released. there are specific things that have caused questions that are hard to answer to be put directly to him. >> i'm waiting to see when rick perry starts answering more questions that the journalists have on behalf of those doing the voting. thanks for joining us. stick around. coming up in the second part of reliable sources, is twitter making political blogs passe? ben is nervous about that. and the uproar at tech crunch over the ouster of the founder who was trading in technology companies covered by his website. paul carr on why he quit and why he thinks the critics are out to lunch. we're back with ben smith. you're a pretty prolific blogger but you told ad week that writing on twitter as so many of us do is sort of draining the life from the blog. explain. >> well, i love writing my blog and plan to keep doing it, but in 2008 during the presidential election the quickest way to find out a new piece of information was often to hit refresh on my blog or somebody else's blog because we were working directly from the event we were at, typing up the notes faster, getting information faster than anybody else and putting it online. you know, it was incredibly intense but fun. you had the sense people were hitting refresh to find out what just happened on your blog. >> and now? >> now it's on twitter. the central conversation about what's happening next, what did somebody say, what's the response. it's either being reported on twitter or just tweeted by the players themselves. >> if the blog is where you earn your paycheck and twitter you give it away for free, why tweet so much? >> well, because it's where the action is. you know, politics is a conversation. twitter isn't just a place where you're kind of having a conversation with your fellow reporters or the side conversation. it's become, i think, the central conversation. so you just have to be there. >> are blogs over? are