I have long been fascinated by Megyn Kelly. I didn’t necessarily agree with the American TV anchor, but found her a compelling media personality. The way she walked the line of news and opinion on Fox News was worth watching. The way she spoke out against Roger Ailes was powerful. She worked to hold Donald Trump to account too. That question in the presidential debate was a blockbuster moment.
Kelly left Fox News in the aftermath of speaking out against Ailes. She then presented a daytime show on NBC that ended disastrously after she downplayed how racist blackface actually is, saying on air:
Back when I was a kid, that was okay just as long as you were dressing as a character.
Kelly subsequently wrote to colleagues apologising, adding:
The history of blackface in our culture is abhorrent; the wounds too deep.
Now, Megyn Kelly is one of the biggest podcasters/YouTubers in the world. She recently announced that she is launcing her own podcast network, MK Media.
Megyn Kelly Enters a Brave New World
It’s an intriguing tragectory to have taken and led to me diving into a profile of her published in the New York Times over the weekend. I then watched a video version of the conversation too.
During the discussion, Kelly talks about her support for President Trump and her pre-election decision to endorse him. This is despite the fact he subjected her and her family to hell for nine months, to the extent that they had to have an armed guard with them at Disney World.
Kelly justifies this, passionately, as being a decision for the greater good. That Kamala Harris would have been so dire, that Trump’s policies are so important, that nothing else matters. Maybe she really believes this. Maybe she’s just convinced herself. It feels a bit like her caving, as the rest of US conservative media did.
Financially, Kelly has clear made the right decision, but I find the move depressing from someone who had previously displayed huge amounts of genuine courage. She could even have advocated for the Trumpian policies she likes without kissing the ring.
Kelly does have her finger on the pulse of where media is going. She emphasised the importance of personality and autheniticty in the interview, the crumbling of institutions, noting just how interviewer Lulu Garcia-Navarro was struggling to get her head around the (lack of) rules in the brave new world.
“Our wires are crossing,” said Kelly. “Your wires and my wires are crossing. You’re looking at me and saying, it’s not behaving like a typical journalist and it is still calling itself a journalist. And I’m trying to say to you, yes, I’m still a journalist.”
And she is. Just not quite the one I’d hoped she’d be.