That may have relevance or importance were she a candidate. But she's not, and I don't expect her to be either.
So, what we're left with is work colleagues not harshly criticizing each other in an effort to get along.
Hypothetically, if she were to run and they remained wary of honestly criticizing her as a candidate it demonstrates and inherent flaw in hiring former politico's who may run again.
Fern
To whatever extent she "is the story", she should be treated like anyone else. It is not relevant whether she is the story because of an announced run, because of a bizarre and embarrassing national bus tour, or because they are doing a retrospective on Miss Alaska pageants. It's a matter of journalistic integrity.
In practice the situation is very awkward for the "rank and file" employees who don't really want to be perceived as speaking ill of their own employer, however indirectly. So they censor themselves. This is all well and good for Ms. Palin (the only thing better would have been to have gotten a job at one of the news outlets that actually are substantially critical of her, like MSNBC), but not so good for the viewers.
For a very similar case, look at how Fox News shows have handled the (also News Corp-owned) News of the World phone-hacking scandal. They are at best walking on eggshells, and at worst, well, there's a clip of "Fox & Friends" where they actively attempt to make the whole thing seem like a non-story.
The weekday schedule is straight new programming from 9AM until 5PM. 6AM to 9AM is the same type morning infotainment programming as found in the same time slots on the 3 major networks. 5PM to 6PM is an opinion oriented show which is where the 2 quotes in the misleading OP came from and is not presented as a hard news program. 6PM to 8PM is hard news programming. 8PM-11PM is opinion shows clearly presented as such.
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