So you work for Fox News, which weekly dives to new depths of anti-truth “news” and commentary, and now you’re worried that the people aren’t listening.
Guess what - when you make one “news” outlet completely untrustworthy, you make it worse for all those who are attempting to be objective (as much as possible) and to hew to the facts in their reporting. Yes, we’re in a terrible time now where facts don’t seem to matter to people when they evaluate public policy. How much of the blame for that problem do you and the Fox News channel share?
Disclaimer: I don’t watch enough of the Fox News channel to know if Ms Kelly is better or worse or average of those who work there. I’ve watched enough to know that “fair and balanced” it ain’t, and that everyone there knows it.
Megyn Kelly is an odd duck. She’ll talk about how Santa is white one day, and then actually deliver some insightful journalism interviews the next. I honestly can’t tell if she’s just falling in line with the Fox execs but occasionally breaks rank, or if is the matter of a broken clock being right twice a day.
I will say that my parents used to love her. Then, she started focusing on becoming more of a brand than a journalist, and now my dad says he can’t stand her. From what I’ve read, she’s trying to become an O’Reilly-esque figure.
I used to actually respect her somewhat and she even got some cred challenging Trump and the party line in comparison to the rest of Fox News but I’m just sick of the overexposure of her and yes the brand thing, and she has a tendency to make news stories about her and not the general topic, she seems very narcissistic.
Could it be…hmmmmm, just maybe, for periods of time, some of us need a break from seeing a certain face or hearing a certain name? So, I take a break from the press. It’s good for my blood pressure.
It seems to me – and I’ve never really watched her – that she has gained a lot of respect as a journalist in her own right over the past year or two. I don’t know if it’s because of her on-air reporting and interviews, or because she was willing to cross sabres with Donald Trump and Roger Ailes (after Gretchen Carlson took the first hit), or what. But I have liberal, feminist friends who speak of her admiringly.
I only caught a short snipped of the Fresh Air interview but I mean to go back and listen to the whole thing; maybe I’m wrong about her. I think it will also say a lot when her contract is up this year if she decides to stay with Fox, who is apparently desperate to keep her, or if she bolts for a real news organization.
If there’s only one thing Trump was right about it would be Megyn Kelly. She’s no journalist, in the first so called debate she went on a deliberate attack against him in a way that had not the least pretense of objectivity. She immediately became the darling of the establishment GOP and the Democrats because she was woman. They would have excoriated any other woman pretending to be a journalist simply based on the way she was dressed and made up not to mention her venomous tone. But because she went after Trump it was suddenly OK. This whole world has gone fucking nuts if we can’t objectively evaluate anything about a situation like that. She was a Fox news stooge, then she hated Fox for being sexist, then became Trump’s friend, and she is still not worth listening to about any subject because she’s just as self promoting and pandering as Trump is. The only good sign I see is that people don’t listen to what she has say.
Anyway, do I have a point to this? Oh yeah, she’s not that much worse than the rest of the press, and they aren’t that much worse than fake news bullshit rabble rousers. The free press used to be the stellar hallmark of this country and our constitution. Now it’s going down the drain and taking the rest of the country with it. Apparently we can’t handle freedom responsibly and this country deserves the misery that lies ahead. We’re not just killing the goose that laid the golden egg, we’re chopping it’s head off an shitting down it’s next, setting the carcass on fire, and dancing around in a circle shouting 'Look at me! Look at me!" while our eyes are glued to fucking smart phones. Jesus H. Christ what a fucking disaster.
Thanks for listening, I just had to get that off my chest before I go buy some guns, bury my gold, move to Canada, and get drunk and hope it’s all over soon.
“Taking a break” occasionally from the press isn’t the same thing as habitually distrusting, rejecting and denying anything the press tells you that you don’t want to hear. I think the latter is what Kelly is talking about.
And I agree with the OP that anyone at Fox News who’s complaining about the American public being too dumbed-down and proudly ignorant is a fucking hypocrite. This is the American public that you’ve spent the past few decades actively attempting to create, you dishonest assholes. Congratulations on achieving your goal.
The point of debate moderators is to ask tough or illuminating questions to candidates to get their response to a particular issue or their proposed policy on an issue.
Here are two of the supposed controversial questions Kelly asked Trump at that first GOP debate:
and
Given all that has subsequently come out on various Trump statements about women, Kelly’s first question seems especially pertinent. If Trump had prepared at all for the debate and wasn’t such a whining crybaby, he could have used that question to pivot into coming up with some answer about valuing female executives in his businesses, how much he relies on his daughter and her ideas, etc.
The second question is again very pertinent given how many times Trump switched parties from Republican to Indepedence/Reform to Democrat to Republican to no party affiliation. At the time of the first debate, Trump didn’t really have much in the way of policy positions other than building a wall and deporting all illegal immigrants, so the traditional policy questions one could ask traditional politicians didn’t really apply to Trump. Questions about his temperament and the sincerity of any ideological beliefs were the most pressing.
She’s real about stuff that affects her, personally. And doesn’t give two shits about the rest, toeing the hateful cuckoo line like the rest of 'em.
But I do remember her reaming a congressman or senator for being a sexist piece of shit on air (and through his votes) and kicking it downright aggro feminist. She just wouldn’t take any of his shit, it was a sight to behold.
So I don’t know if that’s respectable or not, since it’s basically self-interest, but I guess she gets points for not being the typical soulless husk sucking on Satan’s puss-filled cock live, which is the usual Fox News fare ?
A couple things: Somehow it wasn’t the right time or format to ask her about the bad info on her network and how she feels about it. I’m not an editor but I was a little disappointed.
I have this feeling that Fox has cowed everyone into playing a version of their game somehow when this happens.
The second is that the main antagonist in the interview was the alt-right, and their abuse of her. I’ve never considered that there could be worse more evil misinformation than Fox. Or that a Fox person could be calling it out. It’s a really bad sign.
I think the damage Fox has done to journalism is just coming home in the alt-right. How far can the denial go with these people? And when will Fox people get out in the real world, do regular interviews where they explain how they are fair and balanced, and get asked tough questions about themselves. It’s newsworthy, and topical. People want to know. But for some reason it’s a third rail in journalism.
She’s certainly pushing this book hard. I listened to maybe 15 minutes of that interview and I swear she mentioned the book at least 5 times. Of course, the book is why she got the interview, which lowers Fresh Air in my estimation somewhat.
So yeah, it’s all about her and not much about truth or honesty or facts.
Any press consists of flattering readers ( for sales ), selling advertising and peddling a line. And has since Samuel Adams and Le Père Duchesne. Whatever I think of any of them they have no external obligation to absolute truth or logic. Who can oversee that, anyway, God ?
You have to understand that her job was to help the eventual Republican nominee win the general election. She went after Trump on the loyalty to the party issue which at the time seemed important. Little did she know that he’d win the whole thing.
I realize that. It’s part of the whole screwed up situation. They all have an agenda now, but the truly messed up part about it is that people don’t seem realize that and act as if this is actually is anywhere near honest journalism instead of pure bullshit. The very fact that the fake journalists become the story shows how far off the rails it all is.
I don’t think any reasonable person expects (or even recognizes) absolute truth or logic. Everyone has a point of view, but honesty means being open about it. Then, being honestly mistaken can happen to anyone. But wholesale making stuff up because it suits you, and then denying any factual counter-evidence without even blinking, that is what these folks are peddling as “news.” What gets me is one of them now saying “Oh, no! People don’t believe what we tell them!”
Honesty is a currency, subject to hyper-inflation under the wrong circumstances: some news sources are like the US dollar, pretty reliable over the long run; Fox News is Weimar Republic currency; places like Breitbart are Monopoly money. When you try to mix them up it’s not surprising when people are suspicious about all of it.