NBC shouldn't be absolved for the Megyn Kelly debacle

The Atlantic

From NBC News chairman Andy Lack saying "I condemn those remarks" to making sure that Today and NBC Nightly News covered Kelly's blackface controversy as a major news story, it seems like NBC is displaying "performances of innocence," says Megan Garber. "And yet NBC—there is a creaking inevitability to every element of this—is now trying to get ahead of the story that happens to be, once again, about itself," she says. "It is attempting to frame Kelly’s departure as a matter of morality rather than a matter of money." But don't forget that Lack has overseen the Access Hollywood Donald Trump tapes debacle, the Ronan Farrow Harvey Weinstein reporting debacle and the Matt Lauer sexual misconduct debacle. As Garber points out, NBC "has this week gone through its own ritual of attempted public conversion. NBC, too, is apolitical, the network is suggesting on its own behalf, as it reportedly prepares to pay Kelly a massive sum to take her act elsewhere. It, too, is innocent. After all, couldn’t the newscaster who insisted that 'Santa just is white' have changed her attitude, under NBC’s warm influence? Can’t a tiger change its stripes? NBC, too, was just asking questions." But Garber adds: "Here is another question, though: What if, when Megyn Kelly wondered aloud why blackface is bad, her ratings had been high? What if she had been a darling of advertisers? What if she had proved better able to return on the massive investment NBC had made in her, and for her? Here is the answer: NBC would very likely, right now, be selling a line about the relatability of Megyn Kelly’s confusion—about how so many Americans have more to understand about their shared history and shared culture, about the ways Kelly’s questions, innocent if ignorant, represent, in the end, a learning opportunity for all. Megyn Kelly, right now, would very likely be undergoing another time-honored American ritual, this one anchored in the sweeping demands of celebrity: the solemn ceremonies of 'moving on.' Apology, forgiveness, forgetfulness—the prodigal daughter, returned to 30 Rock once more."

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• "The problem with Megyn Kelly Today is that it was always a morning talk show about a woman who really wanted a morning talk show," says Hank Stuever. "She came to it with only a nominal interest in anything but herself. She treats everything as a subject and only goes with what she think she already knows. She never had empathy, she's not a good listener, and she loves to make excuses. And for all the talk about how smart she is, she never seemed to do any homework. That's how you wind up being a person in 2018 who hasn't figured out why blackface is not okay and how culture and history got to the mutual understanding that it isn't."
• Kareem Abdul-Jabbar says Kelly's blackface defense was "hate-crime adjacent": "She’s an educated person with a news background, so there’s no way she is not informed on the issue. Which means she deliberately, without regard to the harm she would inflict on people of color, chose to pull out this old controversy. Not quite a hate crime, but hate crime-adjacent."
• How does NBC News chairman Andy Lack still have a job with a "record of deep shame" overseeing so many controversies?
• Kelly learned that TV star power is a delicate thing and cannot easily be transplanted -- just ask Katie Couric, Meredith Vieira, Jane Pauley and Anderson Cooper
• Networks won't touch Kelly if she leaves NBC News: She'll have very few big-time career opportunities
• Geraldo Rivera again defends Kelly: "She said something stupid, but she didn’t mean to hurt anybody’s feelings. She was just telling the truth about how she was raised and how things were back in the day."
• Could NBC News keep Kelly in an "Ann Curry situation" -- giving her fake jobs to save face?
• Watch a montage of Kelly's most controversial Megyn Kelly Today moments
• Relive the 10 "best" moments from Megyn Kelly Today