Kinda Tough on Sarah Palin?

Sarah Palin -- you either love her or hate her. I, a former member of the evil, commie pinko, left-wing-biased media, am voting for Obama. Nevertheless, as the benevolent dictator of a non-political blog about language, I feel a need to rise to Palin's defense for a moment... or at least toss out a question to consider.

CNN's Political Ticker ran an article today that quoted Governor Palin this way:

"It is pertinent, it's important because when you consider Barack Obama's reaction to and explanation to his association there, and without him being clear at all on what he knew and when he knew it, that I think kinda peeks into his ability to tell us the truth on, not only on association but perhaps other things also."

Okay, so that is a very long sentence. I'll leave that issue alone for now. Let's instead zero in on one (or two) words: "Kinda."

One of the first things they pound into your head in Journalism 101 is the importance of quoting people accurately. You don't clean up grammatical gaffes -- for example, if someone says, "I ain't the bad guy," that's how you write it; you don't write, "I'm not the bad guy," even though language purists would argue that "ain't" isn't a word. But things get tricky when you deal with colloquialisms like "kinda," or "gonna."

Many publications' style rules say that in print, you should change "gonna" to "going to," arguing that "gonna" is not actually a word, and that mispronounced words should be spelled correctly.

When I worked as a news anchor for an AM news-talk station that had a format they called "info-tainment," my job was to write and read the news in a way that sounded like real people talk. Instead of saying, "The police arrested a suspect," I was supposed to say things like, "The cops busted a guy." I was supposed to be people's pal who was sitting with them at the breakfast table or riding with them to work. Nevertheless, my bosses scolded me one time for being too casual when I used the word "gonna" rather than "going to." Their argument: "Cops" is a word, but "gonna" isn't.

Love her or hate her, a big part of the image Palin is trying to portray is that of an everyday person, someone who among other things talks like an everyday person.

So the question is this: When she says "kinda," should the press spell it "kinda" or "kind of?" It's technically two words, but most people, when speaking casually, drop the "f" in "of."

So when the media spell the word "kinda," are they being hard on Palin? Or are they helping her (by carrying forth the image she is trying to project)? Are they quoting her accurately or are they misspelling a common colloquialism?

I am guessing that most other political candidates also say "kinda" from time to time, and I am guessing that when they do, it is written, "kind of." I would argue, as much as I dislike and fear Palin, that it's not fair to spell things differently in her case alone.

Which is the more accurate way of quoting someone? I dunno.