Putin Interviewer: What we know about journalist Megin Kelly
"No, of course, Megin is prettier than me. I understand why she succeeded (to interview President Putin. - Ed.). She is, of course, a beautiful little thing, and I may not have such legs or a dress like hers, but at least I got ready! ”- this is how director Oliver Stone, author of the four-part portrait of Russian President Vladimir Putin, reacted when he saw the recent an interview with a Russian president’s NBC journalist. This interview became possible after an almost hour-long discussion within the St. Petersburg Economic Forum, which Megin moderated. President Putin responded very sharply to the journalist’s questions about Russian hackers, allegedly interfering US presidential elections. Charges hung in the air, no clear answers were received, but now the name of the journalist Kelly became known not only to Americans, but all over the world. Who is Megin Kelly and why does the reaction to her sometimes produce even more media effect than her toughest interviews?
In fact, Kelly is an ideal trap for unlucky sexists: a seductive appearance is emphasized, a textbook image of a sexy blonde who is not at all ashamed of her femininity. It seems that the film “Legally Blonde” could have been shot exactly about her: Megin came to the world of television news from the position of a corporate lawyer, neither then, nor now without resorting to classical power dressing, to make herself take it seriously. However, each new accusation of its inconsistency with the canons of “serious” journalism draws attention to the illusory nature of such installations. "Stop dressing like a waitress if you want us to take you seriously!" - these were the most discreet comments from Twitter users, outraged by the appearance of Megin during the Republican National Convention in 2016. “In the end, who said that the journalist of the national TV channel cannot dress appropriately in hot weather?” Her colleague from The Huffington Post, Genevieve Hatch, reasoned outraged. “Does a dress with open shoulders automatically make you an object of attack?”
It is the appearance and behavior of Kelly that caused the main scandal in her career - a series of squabbles live with US presidential candidate Donald Thump. “You call unsuitable women“ pigs ”and“ vile creatures ”,“ she told Trump. Trump's reaction was enthrallingly adorable. At first he hinted that the journalist was “bombing” and “all bleeding”, and then he retorted in the spirit that Megin Kelly would have previously had to follow her own behavior, recalling her frank photo session for GQ. Megin was completely calm: "You know what? I would not participate in the photo shoot if I wasn’t sure that I had nothing to be ashamed of. I was forty, I was waiting for the child and decided, hell, I look great, why not?" In the end, Trump apologized to the journalist, but it was too late. The war with the journalist, personifying the most republican of the American TV channels, seriously shaken the candidate’s position and set up her own party against him right on the eve of the elections.
Kelly's seductive appearance, a textbook image of a sexy blonde who is not shy of her femininity, is underlined - an ideal trap for hapless sexists
Separately, it is worth telling about how imperceptibly Megin, never considered a liberal voice (rather, irritating both zealous liberals and her own colleagues), turned out to be the most appropriate media personality to the current political situation. Her confrontation with a candidate who behaved rather dubiously on the air showed how a modern journalist can and should behave in an era when an automatic adherence to political views can play a cruel joke with you by making a "tunnel perception" hostage. For clarity, imagine the following situation: the First Channel presenter becomes the object of a sexist joke of a presidential candidate and publicly condemns this behavior as an obvious favorite of the race. Unthinkable This simple speculative experiment approximately shows the effect, thus produced by the Fox channel.
One of the main challenges for democracy, as a rule, is the need to protect those who are unsympathetic to you. It is clear that if Trump had allowed himself a scandalous statement regarding a generally recognized pet, it would be pleasant and natural to rally around such a victim. Megin Kelly has never been among the undisputed popular favorites, evoking polar emotions, often of a negative nature. Newsweek magazine described Kelly’s attitude as a typical example of the “Eva effect” - referring to the film “All about Eve” and implying that even in the most compromised or questionable community there will certainly be the least sympathetic hero who has zero trust. "In Fox, almost everything, from star colleagues to ordinary make-up artist, agree that Kelly is the main" Eve "of this television era - soulless, heartless, shameless and quarrelsome." Such an attitude towards Megin, one of the most influential and unprecedentedly highly paid American television anchors, did not emerge yesterday and was dictated not only by external data, but also by provocative manner of asking questions on the air and, as it was believed, to go over the heads of colleagues outside it. However, her open conflict with her colleague on Fox, Bill O'Reilly, after which the characteristic “bitchy” firmly attached to Megin, turned out to be the result of an unhealthy atmosphere on the TV channel.
Whatever it is - not strictly dressed, not enough liberal or, maybe, not quite, according to colleagues, prepared - this cannot be a reason to insult her. No matter how embarrassed you are by the manner of conducting the television show, one cannot deny that today she is one of the main American journalists of the Trump era. Like the fact that President Putin gave two very different interviews - Megin Kelly and Oliver Stone.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons, Megyn Kelly / Facebook
