Anchorage Daily News

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

ABC would not release any details about where and when 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 Aug. 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, a decision that he fretted about for hours, Gibson said in a Web log posted last week.

"Once you know about her daughter's pregnancy, once you know about her husband's political interest in the Alaska Independent Party, once you know about the special nature of their latest child, I think that's enough," Gibson wrote.

The relevant questions about Palin all related to her experience and policy positions as a mayor and governor of Alaska.

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 GOP loyalists with her speech last week at the Republican convention in St. Paul, Minn., 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."

New Palin book due out Oct. 10

CASCADE TOWNSHIP, Mich. -- The Christian book publisher Zondervan is coming out with a biography of Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.

The Grand Rapids-area company says the book about Alaska's 44-year-old governor goes on sale Oct. 10 and is called "Sarah Palin: A New Kind of Leader."

Zondervan chief executive Moe Girkins says in a news release that "regardless of your political persuasion, it is clear that Sarah Palin has quickly electrified the 2008 election."

The Grand Rapids Press says author Joe Hilley is a lawyer and writer of Christian novels. Zondervan is based in Kent County's Cascade Township.

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