Marie Claire gave Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly a tough but fair Q & A, and you should read the whole thing because it’s fascinating, but these are the undisputed highlights:
You have a very close relationship with Fox News CEO Roger Ailes. Tell us something we may not know about him.
Obviously he’s very powerful, a television genius. Even his critics will cop to that. But he is also somebody who looks out for the people who work for him. A couple years ago, I had a very bad stalking problem. I was living alone in D.C. In addition to security Fox provided me, Roger offered to pay out of his own pocket for special dead bolts throughout my home. It was just a small thing, but he didn’t have to do it. I had a boss who cared, and it made me feel better.
Do you think Fox is biased?
No. Fox News covers stories that some other news outlets won’t cover. We ask some questions that other news outlets wouldn’t ask. And sometimes that’s perceived as bias by people who’ve grown up in a world where there are only liberal outlets.
She says that Glenn Beck did not harm Fox’s credibility because he was clearly labeled as an “opinion host,” and, later, that the problem with Jon Stewart is that people think The Daily Show is actual news that made an attempt to be fair.
Did a series of financial fiction in Le Monde lead to a 15% drop in share price for French bank Société Générale? Possibly, according to the New York Times! A few weeks after the bank was featured in the series, the London tabloid The Mail ran a speculative news story about Société Générale’s imminent collapse, perhaps based rumors sparked by a lousy translation. It turns out the bank’s doing fine; The Mail issued an apology. (The denouement of the fictional series, ironically, is that British journalists fuel rumors that lead to the demise of the Euro.) The series was controversial within France for political reasons. Quelle yarn! Read-le!
Time Warner Cable is in talks to purchase Insight Communications Co., the country’s ninth largest cable provider, for $3B., reports Bloomberg and others. Never heard of them? They service customers in Kentucky, Indiana and Ohio.
How are things over at AOL (AOL)? The Wall Street Journal reports that traffic is up 3%, thanks to the Huffington Post, but barely covering the dips at their old properties. 37% of AOL’s revenue still comes from subscriptions and 16% is tied to Web-search advertising–revenues from which declined more than 20% in the second quarter.
Twitter is making us poor readers, according to The Guardian, and killing off big ideas, according to The New York Times. Bill Keller is waiting for a high five somewhere.
