Sarah Palin leaves FOX News after three years as paid analyst

Sarah Palin has left FOX News after her three-year run as a paid contributor to the conservative cable news channel.

“It’s my understanding that Gov. Palin was offered a contract by FOX, and she decided not to renew the arrangement,” the source told Real Clear Politics on Friday.

“She remains focused on broadening her message of common-sense conservatism across the country and will be expanding her voice in the national discussion.”

Bill Shine, an executive vice president at Fox, confirmed the news in a statement sent to the New York Times.

“We have thoroughly enjoyed our association with Governor Palin. We wish her the best in her future endeavors,” Bill Shine wrote.

It is unclear whether the parting was Sarah Palin’s choice. Multiple sources told the Times that the decision to end her contract was “amicable”.

The anonymous source who spoke with Real Clear Politics declined to say whether Sarah Palin would pursue a television contract with another news network.

SarahPalin became one of FOX’s leading political contributors, making frequent appearances across the news channel’s programming after she resigned from her role as Alaska’s governor in 2009.

In 2010, FOX constructed a studio inside the Tea Party favorite’s home in Wasilla, Alaska, where her husband, Todd Palin, would occasionally take on the role of cameraman and producer during her live television appearances.

Sarah Palin’s relationship with the cable news channel owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. empire had seemingly taken several rocky turns in the past year, according to Real Clear Politics.

In a Facebook post during the Republican convention last August, Sarah Palin complained that FOX had cancelled “all her scheduled interviews tonight”.

Sarah Palin’s departure from the nation’s highest-rated cable news channel follows the departure of another former governor leaving a paid media gig.

Earlier this month, former New York governor Elliot Spitzer stepped down from his prime-time television gig at Current TV after the channel was acquired by Middle Eastern media giant Al Jazeera for $500 million.