Megyn Kelly’s success must be driving Media Matters crazy-er
NY Times Writes Glowing Piece About Megyn Kelly.
Did you think it was impossible for the Times to say something nice about anyone at FOX News?
I did too, until I read this column by Jim Rutenberg:
The Megyn Kelly Moment
Kelly, who is now 44, grew up in Ailes’s America, in a middle-class suburb of Albany called Delmar. She was the youngest of three children, worked as a fitness instructor and went to Mass most Sundays. Her father was an education professor at the State University of New York at Albany, and her mother ran the behavioral-health department at a Veterans Administration hospital. As a teenager in the late 1980s, she lived in a mall rat’s bubble of tall hair, leg warmers and Bon Jovi; one of the popular kids, she was the type who also had friends among the other groups at Bethlehem Central High School, with names like the Dirties (hackeysack-playing stoners) and the Creamies (choir geeks).
Reality intruded early. Ten days before Christmas, when Kelly was 15, her father died of a heart attack. He had canceled some of his life-insurance coverage just two months earlier. Money had been tight, and Kelly’s mother had to worry about the mortgage and other expenses. In her senior yearbook, Megyn listed her future hopes in three words: “College, government, wealth.”
Kelly took a high-school aptitude test that, in a perhaps rare moment of accuracy for such tests, suggested that her ideal career was news. She applied to Syracuse in hopes of attending its well-regarded communications program; she was accepted to the school but rejected from the program, so she majored in political science instead.
It’s a very long piece but worth reading in full.
Of course, not everyone on the left is happy about Kelly’s success.
As Professor Jacobson wrote in 2013, Media Matters was panicked by her rising career:
Media Matters: Be afraid of Megyn Kelly, be very afraid
We don’t actually know that Megyn Kelly is replacing Sean Hannity, even if the Drudge scoop is true that Kelly is taking the 9 p.m. slot at Fox News. Hannity may be moving to another prime time slot, or there may be some out-of-the-box schedule other than 1 hour slots per person.
But Media Matters is not waiting to find out, it’s sounding the alarm about how devious Roger Ailes is in promoting Kelly, Megyn Kelly, Sean Hannity, And What Fox News’ “Course Correction” Really Means
In the New York Times piece, Ms. Kelly addressed the Media Matters issue:
When Kelly got her 9 p.m. show, Media Matters sounded an alarm, calling her “a much more pernicious purveyor of political propaganda” than other Fox News stars, with a unique ability to “pluck misinformation and imbue it with a veneer of legitimacy.” (She ignores Media Matters, she says: “They exist to destroy Fox News.”)
The folks at Media Matters may think they matter but Megyn Kelly is having the last laugh.
Good for her.
Featured image via the Huffington Post.
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Comments
And her being female and attractive has nothing to do with her success.
Not. A. Thing.
It was all hard work I tells ya.
There are a lot of attractive females who DON’T make a success out of that type of career. I’d say that her success comes more from her ability to see reality and her courage in pointing it out — particularly to those who don’t want to acknowledge it.
Why can’t one be attractive AND competent also? She is very quick witted and fearless and goes where others won’t – she’s also funny and can be sharp tongued. She doesn’t put up with a lot of guff. I like her.
And so does her husband. A lot. 🙂
Would you say the same misogynistic reductionism about Marissa Mayer President and CEO of Yahoo!?
Jakee, really? Do you watch her? Have you followed her career? And you’re going with the gender and looks thing? How pathetic and ignorant of you.
You lefties always want to scream about women’s struggles in modern-day America. Then, when one of them is successful it must be because of white privilege or beauty and not brains. Now tell me, who looks like the misogynistic jerk?
Yes, looks can open doors……. Talent keeps you inside those doors. She has talent. Sean Hannity irritates me. Fox is a bit too statist for me; but Megan keeps things interesting.
Tough, hard working, thorough, intelligent, and rational.
In short, she is what a newscaster is supposed to be like.
A match made in heaven – Ailes (and Fox News) and Kelly’s ambitions. Bumping Hannity, and giving her his slot was genius. He couldn’t take it to the next level, and she can. She is even putting pressure on O’Reilly, who has been #1 since, maybe WW II, or at least the entry of Fox News.
I found the bio interesting. One thing that surprised me a bit was that she wasn’t a prosecutor, as I had thought, but rather, a lawyer at a white shoe firm. That sort of class comes through, esp. when you compare her to the other FNC former female attorneys (Greta, Guilfoyle, etc) Still, it is interesting that FNC does seem to like hiring former attorneys as news babes. They seem, in my opinion, to do a much better job than the journalism majors that seem to be so readily hired by the other networks (and where Kelly seemed to want to go after high school).
Fox News, as well as the other news networks and shows, has a demographic problem. The average age of their viewers is aging fast. Slotting Kelly between O’Reilly and Hannity seems aimed at this. I just watched so clips from the Five at Five, and that show too is aimed at a younger, hipper, demographic. And, ditto, I think, with the daytime Outnumbered. All of which I enjoy (but am not their target demographic), though the latter sometimes has too much estrogen for my likes. Oh, and Gutfeld’s Red Eye.
I will continue to watch Kelly on FNC. Not regularly, but far more than any of the other nightly news shows. For one thing, you can always hope for one her moments, where her inner attorney comes out, and she eviscerates whomever she has on at the time (including some on the right, like Karl Rove on election night 2012).
Female and pretty is dime a dozen. The woman has great skills, but just like every other cable news talking head, she will abandon obvious follow-up questions when the show clock forces it. Nothing frustrates me more on cable news. Along with her skills, while divining her success, do not overlook the value of (1) the lead-in from the #1 news show on cable, The O’Reilly Factor, with an audience more than 2 x the runner up on CNN, and (2) her time slot of 9 pm. Regardless of lead-in, this is a choice prime time spot.
Forgive me if I’ve revealed any bitterness towards Ms. Kelly. I had a relationship with her in the early ’90s and, in fact, we were practically married until the court order stopped my flowers, calls, and letters.
prob gonna get slammed over this but I think she was involved in the herman cain stuff and I am very suspicious of her.
but no matter, I truly am glad she is doing well as I do think she is a smart person.
They should replace her with Harris Faulkner. Megyn is annoying as hell, especially when she displays that scrunched up facial expression, like she’s holding back diarrhea, when she’s trying to contain her drunken, prom queen-like composure.
I get a kick out of her. She’s just a bit quicker on her feet to challenge someone’s incorrect talking points and data. Not to mention being a successful working Mom (with a good support system to make it happen) and she loves her NaNa!
Megyn is not “news”, but she does fair and balanced pretty well, and probes much better than most. Looking awesome helps, and maybe even disarms some. She did well with Ayers and some others that are pretty radical left.
She will let people talk on if they are staying on point, which is good. O’Reilly tends to interrupt as soon as someone isn’t making the point HE wants made. Hannity is more about serving the red meat up to conservatives, but I think Megyn gets a little further into the head of the left, more into breaking down the other side than a flame war type “talking past each other” kind of thing.
And she is fairly new at her current role, so will mature for the better hopefully, and not fall into the glamor of position, and “not get puffed up”, per Tiny Tim. 🙂
FOX has to get ratings and sell ads, so entertainment is part of the deal. Kelly can be fun and lighthearted too, and laugh at herself a little, so that sells well.
She says she left law to make a difference iirc, and perhaps she is penetrating some of the corruption … though it is a long road ahead of her, full of people that will try to smear any that would reveal them. I think her husband’s book goes down that same path.