In doing so, she displayed little awareness that blackface minstrelsy, a popular form of entertainment in the 1800s that later seeped into Hollywood productions, promoted a racist caricature and presented a distorted view of slavery. Malik Russell, a spokesman for the N.A.A.C.P., issued a statement about her comments: “Maybe in Megyn Kelly’s world, offensive acts and racism are O.K., but I assure you for individuals of color, blackface is always racist and never O.K.”
[Read our Critic’s Notebook on how Ms. Kelly’s background led to her recent troubles.]
When Ms. Kelly left Fox News in January 2017, NBC gave her a rich deal through 2020 and signaled that she would be a centerpiece of the network.
In addition to giving her the third hour of NBC’s morning franchise, “Today,” the network created “Sunday Night With Megyn Kelly,” meant to challenge the CBS stalwart “60 Minutes.” The plan also called for Ms. Kelly to provide a boost to election specials and Olympics coverage.
In the months before she made the jump to NBC, Ms. Kelly had broken out of the cable news bubble by challenging Donald J. Trump during a presidential debate and writing critically in a memoir about the Fox News chairman Roger E. Ailes, who left the network after multiple women accused him of sexual misconduct. In the book, “Settle for More,” Ms. Kelly reported that Mr. Ailes had “made sexual comments to me” and “offers of professional advancement in exchange for sexual favors.”
At Fox News, Ms. Kelly, a former lawyer, distinguished herself over 12 years as a sometimes prosecutorial interviewer who did not shy away from third-rail topics. She was No. 1 in her time slot, sometimes rivaling her colleague Bill O’Reilly as the biggest ratings draw in all of cable news.
As she prepared to make the move to a big network, she said a politics-free morning program was something she was “born to do.” She aspired to become a hybrid of Charlie Rose and Oprah Winfrey, she said at the time.
A month after her May 1, 2017, start date, Ms. Kelly’s Sunday magazine show debuted to middling ratings. And before long she became the scourge of parents of the Sandy Hook shootings when she interviewed the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who had falsely claimed that the 2012 school killings were a hoax, and posted a photograph of the two smiling together.
Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/25/business/media/megyn-kelly-skips-today-blackface-nbc.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
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