Doesn’t it Feel Like Everyone Has it Out For Megyn Kelly?

When a television news personality is suddenly more successful and richer than almost any of her peers, things can get ugly. In the National Review, John Daly examines this phenomena as it pertains to Megyn Kelly while she prepares for her big NBC debut. Daly suggests that she’s currently the most unfairly “maligned” journalist in America, and given the amount of gossip in the media about her welcome to the new network, he sure seems to have a point.

Whether it’s attacks from the right or left, no matter what Kelly does, she can’t seem to win.

For example, there are reports that she is already hated and feared behind the scenes at NBC. It’s been rumored that Tamron Hall‘s departure from NBC was a protest against Kelly’s hiring or, at least, against Kelly being given her Today Show time slot. And there have been other unsubstantiated reports that she is gunning for the Today Show co-host position currently held by Savannah Guthrie. In particular, the New York Post’s Page Six (not so coincidentally owned by the same company as Kelly’s former employer Fox News) has been behind much of this incessant and seemingly planted rumormongering.

Kelly left Fox despite a huge offer to remain there shortly after it was revealed that she had personally put the nail in the coffin of Roger Ailes‘ career by talking to lawyers about his allegedly predatory behavior.

Remember, too, that Kelly had very public differences with other Fox anchors like Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly. She sparred with those two subtly and even on Twitter in a move that shocked the rest of the political media world. Behind-the-scenes conflict is common; yanking it into public view is not. Most saw this — and by “this” we specifically mean Hannity accusing Kelly of supporting Hillary Clinton — as retaliation against the lawyer-turned-anchor for going too far left for her Fox friends to follow. And once again, it’s worth remembering she left Fox for another media suitor.

Kelly’s problems aren’t just located in the halls and boardrooms of major television networks, either. Currently, organizations and individuals on the left — you know, a space so many others appear to think she has seamlessly infiltrated — are up in arms that Kelly has seemingly been rewarded for past comments that were seen by them as racially insensitive and misogynistic. Here’s how it was recently put by Branko Marcetic in Jacobin:

But the praise heaped on Kelly for her eleventh-hour embrace of some feminist ideas — and for her meager adoption of some other concepts favored by the Left—is incredibly outsized. More importantly, it threatens to overwrite the many years Kelly has spent spreading noxious, ugly and sometimes downright fraudulent beliefs from her platform at Fox News.

That comes from a piece titled, “Megyn Kelly Is Still Terrible,” for what it’s worth.

Conversely, many on the right are still mad that a Fox anchor had the audacity to take on Donald Trump for anything less than a cozy chat over afternoon tea. For proof of that, look no further than the attack Kelly sustained in the form of furious Amazon reviews for her new book, Settle For More. Many of the comments, which were tacked onto one-star ratings, made reference to her history of being hard on Trump without ever mentioning the book in question.

It used to be that as a journalist, if you had both sides angry at you, then you had achieved the ultimate goal. Apparently that is not so in this “us” versus “them environment that now dominates. And Kelly also has other attributes that make her uniquely hateable: looks, brains, a willingness to take on both political parties and an innate talent for what she does. Heck, massive bidding wars don’t ensue over talentless hacks.

Maybe there is one way Kelly can win in spite of the negativity coming at her on all sides. She can do what NBC has hired her to do and report factually, fairly, and congenially while having some fun with the lighter fare. If she was able to withstand a year of abuse from Trump himself, surely she can do this. In the meantime, she will have to ignore the slings and arrows of outrageous. . . former and future colleagues.

[image: screengrab]

Lindsey: Twitter. Facebook.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.

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