{"id":1441865,"date":"2023-12-03T02:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-12-03T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/?p=1441865"},"modified":"2023-12-03T02:00:00","modified_gmt":"2023-12-03T07:00:00","slug":"megyn-kellys-new-media-moment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/megyn-kellys-new-media-moment\/1441865\/","title":{"rendered":"Megyn Kelly’s New Media Moment"},"content":{"rendered":"

Megyn Kelly’s New Media Moment<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Authored by Philip Wegmann via RealClear Wire<\/a>,<\/em><\/p>\n

Megyn Kelly was worried. And more recently, indignant. Righteously, of course.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

She craved another chance and felt confident,<\/strong> while watching from home, that she could deliver in a way that was a hell of a lot better than the competition, harboring the sort of personal ambition and professional jealousy that develop as a matter of course in all who have fought for survival in prime time.<\/p>\n

Talent and earned experience and the trust of a large audience. She has had all of it. <\/strong>The only thing she needed now was a television network. And so, she will borrow one.<\/p>\n

She is set to return as a debate moderator next week to referee the fourth Republican presidential debate, this one in Tuscaloosa, Ala., and this time on NewsNation as part of a partnership with that network, Sirius XM, and the Free Beacon. It is a noteworthy milestone; she had a front-row seat eight years ago to the rise of populism. It is also a test of the new media; she bridled a similar kind of populism to continue her career.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s why, for just a while, she worried. Independent journalists don\u2019t often get to call marquee prize fights. But Megyn Kelly does.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cMalpractice, absolute journalistic malpractice!<\/strong>\u201d That\u2019s how Kelly describes the most explosive exchange from the Miami debate moderated by NBC News anchors Lester Holt and Kristen Welker. Nikki Haley had called Vivek Ramaswamy \u201cscum\u201d after the businessman took a shot at her adult daughter. <\/strong>Reliving the moment in an interview with RealClearPolitics, Kelly was incredulous: \u201cAnd the moderator did not stop to say, \u2018Wait, did you just call him scum? Mr. Ramaswamy. Do you care to respond?<\/strong>\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHow did that not happen?\u201d she asks before immediately offering an answer. \u201cBecause these moderators are too tied to their written questions. They\u2019re not nimble. They are afraid to deviate from what their producers put in front of them. That isn\u2019t good television!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a reason why they call it broadcast journalism. It\u2019s not just about journalism. It\u2019s also about seizing the moment,\u201d she explains. \u201cYou feel the moment, go with the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kelly could have just as easily been describing her own career. A trial lawyer before entering journalism, Kelly jumped from the courtroom to cable news to network television over\u00a0the last two decades.<\/p>\n

And then the wilderness. Veteran journalists who go it alone hardly ever regain prominence. Some decamp to college campuses. Others write books. Most generally fade. Kelly, instead, seized the digital moment.<\/p>\n

Three years ago, after an unsuccessful stint at NBC News, she launched \u201cThe Megyn Kelly Show,\u201d<\/strong> a daily podcast that was later picked up on Sirius XM and that posts on YouTube, where her interviews regularly attract millions of viewers.<\/a> Professional indifference, as much as independence, was an advertised feature of the new venture. The name of her production company: \u201cDevil May Care Media.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFourth or fifth acts in broadcast media are rare,\u201d explains Brian Stelter, \u201cand she is pulling it off.\u201d Hardly a conservative fanboy, the veteran media reporter and former host of CNN\u2019s Reliable Sources occasionally tunes in to the show during his commute, programming he described as \u201ca hard-right, anti-woke rage fest.\u201d But Stelter admits the Kelly renaissance \u201cis a pretty rare success story.\u201d \u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

A seat at the desk of a presidential debate, though, the crown jewel of any career in political journalism? Even Kelly felt that would be out of reach \u201cthis time around.\u201d Those gigs traditionally go to legacy media, and for good reason. Deep pockets, not to mention a wealth of experience, are needed to pull off a prize fight in prime time. All the same, Kelly says she \u201cwound up with three different offers to co-moderate a debate.\u201d But even with NewsNation handling all the technical logistics, would the ordeal be worth the fuss?<\/p>\n

Former President Donald Trump has walked away from the stage, leaving his primary challengers to cannibalize each other as they trail by more than 45 points.<\/a> \u201cDoes it matter at all?\u201d she asked herself when deciding whether to moderate an undercard debate without the biggest name in politics. Sequels often fall flat, and her first debate had catapulted her to the journalism equivalent of superstardom.<\/p>\n

It has now been eight years since Trump and Kelly, then of Fox News, clashed at the first Republican presidential debate. A stampede of magazine writers followed.<\/p>\n

\u201cBlowhards, Beware,\u201d declared Vanity Fair in 2016, \u201cMegyn Kelly Will Slay You Now.\u201d<\/a> And later Vogue dubbed her \u201cMegyn Unbound\u201d <\/strong>as she prepared to decamp Fox for NBC the next year, speculating that, once split from the conservative news juggernaut, she could finally be \u201ca force for good.\u201d<\/a> Eventually, the names of the magazines that profiled her said as much about her career as the interviewsVariety<\/a>, then Success, and finally More.<\/a><\/p>\n

The quotes changed. The formula for each glossy cover story stayed the same. An elegant photo shoot, a couple thousand words complete with anecdotes about unscripted off-air moments, deviations on one common theme. One gushing headline summed up the shared sentiment\u201cMegyn Kelly Always Wins.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

She chuckles at that past coverage, and then the new queen of independent journalism returns to a no-brainer for anyone else with a byline. \u201cIn the end, I concluded, yes,\u201d Kelly says of her reason for reprising her role as debate moderator, noting that \u201cTrump is vulnerable in some unique ways\u201d \u2013 from the frontrunner\u2019s legal jeopardy to, \u201cwith all due respect,\u201d the septuagenarian\u2019s health. Between the Thanksgiving holiday and debate prep sessions, she insists \u201cthere are all sorts of reasons\u201d for the GOP to consider \u201cat least the next best option.\u201d One of the candidates not named Trump \u201ccould pull an inside straight,\u201d she muses. \u201cIt\u2019s not likely,\u201d Kelly concludes, \u201cbut who am I to rule it out?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Haley, Ramaswamy, and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis have qualified for that contest. None would likely appreciate her analysis of their chances. All of them know her already, however, and there is a level of comfort with Kelly inside party headquarters and among the grassroots. She may not be a dyed-in-the-wool conservative. She can at least speak their language.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis does get to an interesting tension point about the debates,\u201d Stelter mused. \u201cWho should be asking the questions: Should it be Hugh Hewitt and Megyn Kelly, or Lester Holt and Bret Baier?\u201d In his estimation, since going independent, the woman once crowned \u201cthe First Lady of Fox,\u201d someone who cultivated a brand as \u201cunpredictable,\u201d has become reliably \u201cmore Rush Limbaugh than Brit Hume.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was Hume who first spotted Kelly and passed her demo tape along to Fox News brass, who eagerly recruited her to be a reporter. The rest is history, including a cautionary tale about cultivating talent. According to talk show host Erick Erickson, NBC drafted Kelly without an adequate plan to leverage her conservative celebrity. \u201cThey could have built a credible brand around Megyn,\u201d he says, \u201cbut chose not to because she did not have enough of a left-wing orthodoxy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Erickson, like many others on the right, was quick to celebrate her return to the moderator role. \u201cShe can speak the language of the people from whom she came,\u201d he explains, \u201ceven though she\u2019s been elevated into this New York world of the media.\u201d<\/p>\n

Conservatives have long loved to hate the media, and moderators are no exception.<\/strong> Ramaswamy delighted the right with his modest proposal at the last debate that Joe Rogan, Elon Musk, and Tucker Carlson should be calling the contest. Kelly arguably has more mainstream appeal, less baggage, and better hair than all of them. And according to Erickson, a unique kind of credibility. \u201cYou don\u2019t have to be a card-carrying member of the vast right-wing conspiracy to be taken seriously by conservatives,\u201d he insisted. \u201cYou just have to be willing to treat them as humans with valid opinions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kelly won\u2019t sign any party membership card. \u201cI\u2019m a registered independent,\u201d she says to almost preempt her admission in the next breath that \u201cmy sensibilities are center-right.\u201d And so, when she takes her seat behind the desk in Alabama and looks out over the field of candidates, she won\u2019t bother with a view from nowhere. On the eve of that contest, Kelly advertises \u201ccomplete fluency\u201d in the ideological concerns of conservatives. And then she offers up a professional disclaimer directed at the politicians she will square up with: \u201cI\u2019m never going to share a jersey with these people.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAm I willing to vote for a Democrat over a Republican at the presidential level these days? I’ll be honest, probably not. I have voted for plenty of Democrats in the past, but the world is so insane right now, and I\u2019ve become almost a single-issue voter on what we\u2019re doing to children in the trans lane,\u201d she admits.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut my point is even though I\u2019m probably rooting for these guys over a Democrat, you won\u2019t be able to tell that on debate night, and that\u2019s all you can ask of a good moderator.<\/strong> They don\u2019t have to have no politics. They don\u2019t have to have no ideology. They have to be able to check it. They go out there such that both sides are satisfied that this person was tough but fair,\u201d she continues.<\/p>\n

Each of the candidates who will walk on stage next week has sat for in-depth interviews with her already, and even Trump made peace with her. Of course, it was only temporary. That segment included a lengthy cross-examination<\/a> about his handling of classified documents, and days after it aired, hostilities resumed. \u201cShe was pretty nasty,\u201d the former president complained to an Iowa crowd, \u201cdidn\u2019t you think?\u201d Kelly could care less.<\/p>\n

She already got the interview. Now she\u2019s about to get her debate, a contest she playfully likens to \u201ca dinner party\u201d where her role is that of the \u201cbad host\u201d who chooses chaos. \u201cInstead of introducing fun topics on which guests might agree, you\u2019re introducing the thorny ones,\u201d Kelly says, laying out in broad strokes her plans for the evening. Should any of the candidates arrive low energy, she warns, well, \u201cMaybe you take out the cattle prod.\u201d<\/p>\n

She plans to invite arguments and doesn\u2019t expect \u201ca hug\u201d from anyone on stage afterward. \u201cAs soon as you declare yourself a presidential candidate, we\u2019re not friends,\u201d Kelly explains. The biggest bully in politics helped solidify that fact in her mind: \u201cThe nature of the relationship becomes adversarial. And as much as Trump came after me and made my life unpleasant after the 2015 debate, he wasn\u2019t wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI threw a punch at him that was considerable, and he threw many, many punches back. You could argue it was excessive. I certainly think it was. But my point is simply that part of it is accepting your role as someone who these guys are not going to like that much. If you\u2019re doing it right, they shouldn\u2019t,\u201d she says, recalling her first big brush with the populist who went on to the presidency.<\/p>\n

She talks in calculated, almost cold-blooded, terms but her inviting tone never loses its warmth. Such is the duality of Megyn Kelly<\/strong>: She is as disarming and kind as any suburban mom anywhere, and yet she has a plan to end the career of any unprepared politician she meets.<\/p>\n

Scott Walker has tangled with Kelly before, and the former Wisconsin governor, who now serves as president of the Young America\u2019s Foundation, has blunt advice for any 2024 candidates who might be tempted to underestimate the blonde brawler: Don\u2019t.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust because she articulates conservative views doesn\u2019t mean any of the candidates will get a pass from her,\u201d Walker cautions. \u201cThey\u2019d better be bringing their A-game to the debate stage.\u201d<\/p>\n

While her confrontation of Trump eight years ago dominates the memory of that contest, her questions to the rest of the field were no less aggressive. For instance, she didn\u2019t lob a softball and invite Walker to explain why he opposed abortion. She threw high and inside. \u201cWould you really let a mother die rather than have an abortion?\u201d Kelly asked. The governor kept his balance, defended his position, and answered that his pro-life position was \u201cin line with everyday America.\u201d<\/p>\n

Others weren\u2019t so lucky that night, as Kelly weaved right as quickly as she bobbed left.<\/strong> One moment, she asked former Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who had leaned on Scripture to justify his expansion of Medicaid, why conservative voters, \u201cwho generally want to shrink government\u201d should \u201cbelieve you won\u2019t use your Saint Peter analogy to expand all government?\u201d The next, she hit him with this question: \u201cIf you had a son or daughter who was gay or lesbian, how would you explain to them your opposition to same-sex marriage?\u201d<\/p>\n

The left-right routine was enough to win Kelly praise from all corners. Greg Abbott, the Republican governor of Texas, declared Kelly \u201cthe toughest person on the debate stage,\u201d while Chelsea Clinton, the daughter of the eventual Democratic nominee the next year, said the moderators had raised \u201cthe quality of the debate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Campaigns are rewatching that debate and pulling clips from her show to prepare. \u201cThey should review my show,\u201d she laughs. \u201cIt\u2019s full of interesting content. They won\u2019t find clues in there, though.\u201d Kelly stubbornly refuses to talk outside of school<\/strong>. She says only that she and her co-moderators, Elizabeth Vargas of NewsNation and Eliana Johnson of the Washington Free Beacon, will be \u201cunsparing.\u201d The trio has binders full of \u201cA+ level questions\u201d designed to shove candidates off their talking points and into real moments of conflict.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the three of us could shrink into obscurity that night, it would be a total win. If it\u2019s just all about the three of them, or four of them, and not at all about the three of us, that would be great,\u201d Kelly says.<\/p>\n

The four of them? \u201cI know Trump loves Alabama. I do know this,\u201d she says of a perhaps hoped-for surprise appearance. \u201cHe loves Alabama. So, there\u2019s some possibility he\u2019d decide to show up.\u201d Should that happen, Kelly says the trio of moderators will be prepared. They\u2019ve studied the candidates and the current moment.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis Republican Party is a far more dynamic, interesting, and complex one than what we had even six to eight years ago,\u201d she reports, before suggesting \u201cthat\u2019s probably actually good for the country\u201d and then declaring, \u201cthat\u2019s definitely good for a debate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Take foreign policy, for instance, the foundation of the previous debate. Kelly cuts the party roughly into thirds for the sake of example<\/strong>. There is \u201cthe populist, Trump MAGA wing,\u201d she says, and \u201cthen you still have the neoconservatives.\u201d The remainder, in her quick estimation, are \u201cthe war-weary\u201d who are skeptical of foreign intervention, \u201cbut who aren\u2019t MAGA and certainly aren\u2019t pro-Trump.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pick a different issue. Slice, dice, and repeat. \u201cThere are a bunch of factions right now in the Republican Party,\u201d she says, in between debate prep sessions, \u201cwhich for me, as somebody who has a show, a journalist, and as a debate moderator, spells opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Familiarity will not lead to fondness, though. The only class Kelly seems to dislike more than politicians are members of the media. So much of her current rise is a reaction to their coverage, or perhaps an antidote. She complains that \u201cthe liberals who dominate the news\u201d fail to account for their own biases, let alone check them in any meaningful way. \u201cThey\u2019re cheerleaders,\u201d Kelly says, \u201cand that\u2019s why independent media has exploded.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe populist rising that we\u2019ve seen in our politics has tilted over to media,\u201d she replies when asked how she fits into that phenomenon. \u201cMy own coverage, I wouldn\u2019t describe it as populist, but it is definitely anti-elite and anti-institution because they\u2019ve earned that disdain. And people have had it. They\u2019ve come to understand that these institutions are not rooting for them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Next week may be the biggest opportunity yet for independent media when Megyn Kelly returns to live television. She predicts that some of her questions will be objectionable to one wing of the party and acceptable to another. \u201cYou have the chance to both please and displease a large constituency,\u201d she says, \u201cwhich is a win.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNo one should be feeling super warm and fuzzy when the debate is over, like they just want to give the debate moderator a hug,\u201d she adds. \u201cThey should be feeling like, \u2018I loved this stuff. I hated that stuff. Overall, I found it very informative.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

More than anything, though, Kelly stresses that she and her co-moderators will go with the moment. \u201cWe are going to make this entertaining<\/strong>,\u201d she promises. \u201cTrust me when I tell you, we know how. It\u2019ll be fun to watch.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Tyler Durden<\/a><\/span>
\nSat, 12\/02\/2023 – 21:00<\/span><\/p>\n

\u200bhttps:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/political\/megyn-kellys-new-media-moment<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Megyn Kelly’s New Media Moment Authored by Philip Wegmann via RealClear Wire, Megyn Kelly was worried. And more recently, indignant. Righteously, of course. She craved…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1441865","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","wpcat-1-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1441865","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1441865"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1441865\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1441865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1441865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1441865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}