Yes, Sara's closeness with her premie mother for much of her life lies at the root of this. She probably had highly favorable preconceived notions resulting from her significant exposure to the the historically revised and legitimized version of it all. Whether her mother's circle influenced her or the cult approached her or she took the initiative on her own to draw attention to something she viewed as positive doesn't matter. They almost certainly worked-out a storyline and questions ahead of time.

Here's what I think about it:

- It seemed obvious that she had already taken the bait and bought-in to it. The "hard-ish" questions came across as figleaves for journalistic credibility and plausible deniability.

- She must've known that the link to the interview would be widely distributed for its promotional value.

- She apparently had no clue about Prem Rawat's grossly hypocritical, secretive and disgusting lifestyle and behaviors, the kind of two-faced deception highly skilled and credible journalists like herself are adept at exposing.

- I wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt and say she didn't even know she was being used, but now I'm inclined to believe that she knew exactly what she was doing, that she was willfully complicit if not the one orchestrating the whole thing.

Pathetic, especially from the perspective of ethical journalism and full disclosure? How much worse can it get?

In my opinion, what the cult is doing now is something close to sinister: using, perhaps knowingly, a wholly reinvented, legitimized and polished "message of peace/humanitarian" facade to attract thousands of people to a money-making scheme for a dark core. (Even if you accept that meditation kills the darkness in peoples' minds, it makes no difference when that darkness resides in their hearts.) 

Here we go again, prembio. The last time I suggested that Prem Rawat had a plan or strategy, you threatened to hit me, lovingly and gently of course, for being so naive as to suggest that he was smart enough to have a plan.    But what about his heavily invested and in-too-deep sycophants who have nothing to fall back on and every self-serving reason to keep it going? 

I completely agree with your thinking that "it was scripted for her or with her and could be the start of the next phase of what I call the Legitimacy Project." (I lived with RC in the ashram.)