Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren scores first post-election interview with Sarah Palin

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Fox News host Greta Van Susteren has landed the first post-election interview with Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the network announced today.

The host of “On the Record” is flying Saturday to Alaska, where she’ll interview the onetime Republican vice presidential candidate on Sunday and Monday. The taped interview will air on her program Monday evening.

Palin is granting the interview after being been pummeled in the press for the last several days by unnamed aides to Sen. John McCain, who said that she made exorbitant clothing expenditures beyond what had been previously reported, and lacked basic knowledge of world affairs.

In the days since she and McCain lost the election, the Alaska governor has been besieged with interview requests from the likes of Barbara Walters, Larry King and Oprah Winfrey. But she chose Van Susteren, who has objected to the bashing of Palin by unnamed aides.

“The sniping at Gov. Palin after the election by ‘anonymous’ sources is rotten,” Van Susteren wrote on her blog today. “I have said over and over and over again, it is our job in journalism to be aggressive in challenging politicians ... but it is not right to gratuitously trash someone ... and worse, it becomes “conventional wisdom” giving some journalists blinders -- meaning they don’t step back and investigate for themselves but rather go with the so-called conventional wisdom ... that is not fair to the politician and is not a good for journalism or the First Amendment ... our goal is to get information and let the people decide.”

Some of the sharpest charges were reported by her Fox News colleague, correspondent Carl Cameron, who said he was told that Palin didn’t know which countries were members of the North American Free Trade Agreement or that Africa was a continent.

“All these things caused great doubts,” Cameron told Bill O’Reilly on Wednesday.

Palin’s spokeswoman has released a statement calling the allegations untrue and “sickening.”

Van Susteren, who interviewed Palin during the campaign, plans to talk to her about the accusations by McCain aides and her political future.

-- Matea Gold