Fox News paid Palin over $15 per word, including 111 'amens'

An analysis by the University of Minnesota's non-partisan Smart Politics website determined that Fox News paid former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin over $15 for each word she uttered on the air during her three-year contract, and 111 of those words were "amen."

Following last week's news that Palin and Fox News had parted ways, Smart Politics' Eric Ostermeier began crunching numbers from the former Republican vice presidential nominee's tenure at Fox News, which was reportedly worth $1 million a year.

"A Smart Politics review of the more than 150 FOX broadcasts in which Sarah Palin appeared as a paid commentator from 2010 through 2012 finds that she spoke 189,221 words on air during this span, for an average pay rate of $15.85 per word," Ostermeier wrote.

Ostermeier calculated that Palin appeared on Fox News an average of once every 7.2 days.

And nearly three-quarters of those interviews included the 140,000 words she spoke on shows hosted by Sean Hannity and Gretchen Carlson, who were thought be more sympathetic to the former governor. Palin, however, avoided tougher interviewers like Chris Wallace and Bill O'Reilly, sparing only about 24,000 words for their shows combined.

As for the content of Palin's oration, much of it was focused on President Barack Obama, whose name she said 786 times. By comparison, former President Ronald Reagan was mentioned 41 times and former President Abraham Lincoln was only acknowledged three times.

Religion was also a popular topic. "God" got 41 mentions, Christianity got 16, Moses was uttered three times and Jesus only received a single nod.

The religious declaration "amen" was a favorite, with 111 citations during 151 appearances.

At 13, the word "Muslim" got nearly as many mentions as Christianity. She also said "Islam" six times.