Megyn Kelly Panel Battles Over Whether Mainstream Media ‘Blew Off’ Benghazi Coverage

On Fox’s America Live today, host Megyn Kelly and conservative writer Jonah Goldberg debated Fox liberal contributor Juan Williams over why the mainstream media has not covered the ongoing investigations into the Obama administration’s response to the September 11th attacks on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

“It’s news. What’s happening in Libya is news,” Kelly said before asking Goldberg: “Why hasn’t there been more interest in this story from others in the mainstream media?”

“I think a lot of people in the mainstream media are treating it as if it were some kind of unfair ‘October Surprise’ foisted on the news cycle by the Romney campaign,” surmised Goldberg. “But it’s not an ‘October Surprise.’ It’s news. Real news.”

Goldberg did caution, however, that we shouldn’t allow the grieving parents of the Benghazi victims, like Charles Woods, to drive the story with “guilt” and tragic pleas. However, Goldberg alleged, the mainstream media has repeatedly denied coverage to the “big story” that the consulate workers were denied assistance from the U.S. government.

Kelly then compared the current situation to that of grieving army mother Cindy Sheehan, who garnered considerable mainstream media attention in her fight against President George W. Bush and the War in Iraq. She lamented that in this current Benghazi situation, grieving father Woods has received little attention.

“Clearly he’s gotten lots of attention here on Fox,” Williams responded. He then cited several write-ups about the story he saw recently in the New York Times and Washington Post… also National Journal did an extensive study of this and said they didn’t come up with any clear evidence of a specific story that would say there was a scandal here.”

“People have looked at it and made a news judgment,” the Fox contributor continued. “Clearly Fox has made a different news judgment.”

Yesterday evening, Fox personality Geraldo Rivera also broke from his network’s trend, lamenting via Twitter that conservatives (without naming his own TV network) have “bloodlust” in their outrage over the Benghazi events.

This afternoon, however, Williams noted that he is all in favor of his network “pursuing” the story because, as with the Watergate scandal, sometimes the scandalous stories don’t come up until much digging has been done.

Kelly then attacked the Sunday morning talk show hosts (except for Fox’s Chris Wallace) for how, in her belief, they “completely blew off Libya.”

Watch below, via Fox News: