Fox News Star Megyn Kelly Slammed For Duggars Interview: Would Bill O’Reilly Do Better?
Megyn Kelly is usually an expert interviewer who knows how to play hard. However, judging by reactions to her interview with Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar, she lobbed a softball. The Wrap talks about the highly rated but massively criticized interview and quotes NPR television critic Eric Deggans.
“It seemed to be pretty much about helping the Duggars salvage their brand rather than getting to the bottom of what happened in this family. She wasn’t particularly incisive and she didn’t push the Duggars on issues that I think are at the heart of this — why they waited so long to go to law enforcement, why they took all these unofficial avenues to get their children help.”
One may say that a television critic from NPR would be biased on any interview given by a Fox News personality. However, his comments seem to summarize what a majority of critics think. TV Grapevine was slightly nicer but also thought the interview was too sympathetic.
“Fox News’ Megyn Kelly devoted her entire program to the exclusive Wednesday – asking a lot of the right questions, albeit in the most sympathetic and gentle manner possible.”
The article ends up comparing Megyn Kelly to a defense attorney. Ouch! Twitter wasn’t very kind about the Megyn Kelly interview either.
Perhaps one of the most interesting questions Megyn Kelly asked the Duggars is what happened when they told their daughters they were improperly touched. The Duggars’ answer was very interesting.
“Actually, what happened was we asked them at first if anything happened. And then it was after some other things happened that we actually shared with them, and we actually — but we took a lot of steps.”
The Duggars go on to a say that they tried to deal with this as “in-house” parents. They say that looking back, they did the best they could under the circumstances. Basically, this answer (as well as others) was about them trying to be good Christian parents rather than how they let down their son.
As Megyn Kelly indicated, the fact that the Duggars have a TLC show on being a good Christian family is what is making this such a huge story. Megyn Kelly doesn’t hide the fact that the Duggars have spoken out against gay rights and any type of touching before marriage.
According to the Huffington Post, Megyn Kelly’s interview brought in 3.1 million viewers — the highest for The Kelly File this year. Perhaps Bill O’Reilly would have scored even higher ratings with the family and would have asked tougher questions. However, this critically maligned interview will end up being just a blip on the full meter of Megyn Kelly’s incredible career.
[Photo Credit: Us Magazine]
