Carol Costello, anchor for CNN, caught some flak this past week for her on-air reaction to audio of Bristol Palin after a “drunken brawl” in Alaska.
Police in Anchorage released audio of interviews they did on the scene of an altercation that involved the Palin family. They had already released the officers’ reports compiled from the audio, but the tapes revealed a lot more of the spirit of the evening.
The audio, and transcriptions thereof, made headlines fast. The Palins had seemed to be dodging talking about the incident in the weeks since it happened. Sarah Palin had written a Facebook post praising Bristol. But not much else had been openly said.
Then came the audio.
As Costello introduced a segment on CNN wherein the audio was played, she remarked that it was “quite possibly the best minute and a half of audio we’ve ever come across. Well, come across in a long time anyway.”
The audio was filled with expletives spoken by a possibly-inebriated Bristol Palin, including one long string of them that was bleeped out. Costello remarked after the clip played, “The long bleep was my favorite part.”
Conservative defenders of the Palin family were livid. Bristol Palin herself blogged about the evening, hoping to set the record straight from her perspective. Her screed against The Media and its “bias against conservative women” did little more than make things muddier. Shortly later, she posted another blog, angry at Costello for laughing at her plight.
Now it appears that Costello is coming forward to make things right.
“Over the past few days I have been roundly criticized for joking about a brawl involving the Palin family,” Costello wrote on Facebook. “In retrospect, I deserve such criticism and would like to apologize.”
Bristol has updated her blog post about the issue to say: “Though, I’ve not been contacted by CNN or that anchor, this is a step in the right direction.”