By BATYA UNGAR-SARGON OCT. 9, 2017, New York Times; see also.
Image from article, with caption The former Fox news anchor Megyn Kelly on the first day of her new show, on NBC
Excerpt:
We didn’t know it then, but August 2015 was a more innocent time. Donald Trump
was still a punch line, Hillary Clinton was poised to become the first female
president, and Megyn Kelly was still an uncompromising, unapologetic, take-noprisoners
Fox News rebel. As of last week, Donald Trump is president, Hillary
Clinton is an also-ran, and you can catch Megyn Kelly on her new NBC program,
“Megyn Kelly Today,” where she performs each morning as some horrific bizarro
version of her former self.
Her appearance during her debut last Monday said it all: Wearing a pink pussybow
blouse, her hair no longer slicked back in the trademark power bob of her later
Fox News days, Ms. Kelly declared that she was “kind of done with politics for now.”
Rather than politics, she explained, her new show would focus on, well, emotions.
“Have a laugh with us, a smile, sometimes a tear, and maybe a little hope to start
your day,” she said. “Some fun! That’s what we want to be doing. Some fun.” ...
Instead of unleashing her, NBC has attempted to transform Megyn Kelly into
one of the nice girls of mainstream media, another Kelly Ripa, Savannah Guthrie or
Katie Couric. The results have been predictably awkward. The glee at her stumble
has been swift and vicious.
Why was Megyn Kelly’s transition into the mainstream accompanied by this
kind of neutering? Why did Fox News have more room for this charismatic, difficult
woman than NBC? It’s hard to say. Mainstream talk shows — morning shows in
particular — have never had much of an appetite for difficult. And at a time when our
country is so divided, [JB emphasis] it was always likely that a network like NBC would try to cast as broad a net as possible, meaning that politics would be off the table for someone like Ms. Kelly. ...
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