A CBS Sunday Morning profile of Megyn Kelly extolled the Fox News host as an “independent” “rising star” with a “reputation for asking tough questions to anyone,” but interviewer Charlie Rose failed to mention Kelly's record of misinformation, fearmongering, and problematic racial rhetoric. CBS' interview follows a series of other laudatory profiles of Kelly -- including a previous interview by Rose -- that have omitted key details of Kelly's problematic journalistic record and conservative advocacy.
During an April 3 interview of the Fox host on CBS Sunday Morning, host Charlie Rose described Kelly as “a self-described independent with a reputation for asking tough questions to anyone, Democrat and Republican alike.” Rose further added, “her legal skills, along with a willingness to take on some of America's big name conservatives, quickly made Kelly a rising star” at Fox News.
But Kelly's record of rampant misinformation and conservative advocacy from behind the anchor desk was left out of the interview, and the accompanying write-up on CBS' website.
Kelly has a long history of scandalmongering and promoting her personal views on air, despite previously insisting that she's “not an opinion-maker” or an “issue advocate,” but rather, a straight “newsperson.” She has frequently hosted an anti-LGBT hate group leader on her show, made flippant comments about racism and police brutality, and promoted conservative falsehoods about Planned Parenthood and the 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya.
Kelly is notorious in her own right for shaming and blaming black victims of police brutality, once suggesting that Sandra Bland's death could be due in part to her failure to obey the police officer, arguing that her death could have been averted if she had just “compl[ied] and complain[ed] later.” Kelly also interjected that the black teenage girl manhandled by a McKinney, Texas, police officer “was no saint either,” after bemoaning that people had “made this into a race thing.”
CBS Sunday Morning's profile is just the latest in a series of laudatory profiles that describe Kelly as someone who “buck[s] the conservative party line” while often ignoring her history of problematic coverage. Rose's previous interview of Kelly in October allowed her to present herself as “different than O'Reilly and Hannity” because “they are opinion guys” and she, supposedly, is not. Evgenia Peretz lionized Megyn Kelly in a glowing February Vanity Fair profile, calling her a “feminist icon of sorts,” and suggesting her “star power” is similar to that of Julia Roberts, but nearly a month later followed up her praise with some of the less laudatory aspects of Kelly's right-wing rhetoric that were left out of the original piece.
Peretz demonstrated that when positive press praise Kelly's “occasional, yet highly entertaining, bucking of the conservative party line,” they downplay the fact that her show “is made up largely of the kind of stories you'd find on many other Fox News shows,” -- a fact that even Peretz acknowledged -- albeit buried -- amid her own glowing Kelly profile.