Megyn Kelly’s coverage of the acquittal of officer Edward Nero in the Freddie Gray case last night should be enough to persuade any viewer that she is still ready and willing to promote Fox News bias with the best of them.
Fox News Bias Tactic #1 was a pretense of balance. First, The Kelly File hosted Black Lives Matter activist, and former candidate for Baltimore mayor, DeRay McKesson. He tried to explain that while Nero may not have been criminally liable, the mayor and police commissioner will conduct an investigation because laws and policies “almost guarantees” a not-guilty verdict. Therefore, the administration review will be important.
Kelly didn’t want to hear about it. She interrupted McKesson as he was also noting that yesterday’s case was one of six. “There was zero facts to support this charge against this officer,” she said hostilely. Fox News Bias Tactic #2, cut your guest off as he tries to answer questions.
McKesson again tried to explain that there’s more to the matter than the criminal case and Kelly again interrupted. When he next had the chance to speak, McKesson said, “We need to make the laws so that they can hold police officers accountable,” only to be badgered again by the host.
“What did he do that was wrong, DeRay?” Kelly asked impatiently. “What, specifically did this guy do because what the evidence showed us was he had virtually no interaction with Freddie Gray. None!”
McKesson disputed that, saying that Nero had been involved in the stop, not Gray’s arrest. “He had no responsibility as noted in the judge’s decision today to intervene when he saw others misbehaving and that is important. We should push for policies…”
Kelly's voice dripped with contempt as she interrupted yet again. Surely, as an attorney, Kelly should have been able to grasp what McKesson was saying but she acted as though McKesson wanted police officers to go to jail if they made any little mistake. She also insisted that McKesson was wrong in his interpretation of the judge’s ruling and insisted the judge had said Nero had not behaved improperly.
But that showed more obliviousness because the judge’s written verdict backed up McKesson’s argument:
The court is not satisfied that the state has shown that the defendant had a duty to seat belt Mr. Gray, and if there was a duty, that the defendant was aware of the duty.
The contrast in “straight news anchor” Kelly’s treatment of Nero’s father was so stark as to be comical.
It was a false equivalence to “balance” McKesson with Nero’s father rather than with an expert on police misconduct. It was an obvious sympathy ploy, which Kelly played to the hilt. Fox News Bias Tactics #3 and #4: let one side speak and don't allow the other side to rebut.
“Describe for the audience what your son has been through this past year,” Kelly said, in a voice that now dripped of compassion. Fox News Bias Tactic #5: The host telegraphs opinions via tone of voice and questions. In this case, Kelly prodded Nero Sr. for his “reaction” to McKesson’s comments and didn’t challenge a word when Nero called him “a very ignorant person.”
“Sometimes we forget about what this kind of an experience puts the officer through. It was described as a year of hell for him. Has it been?” Kelly asked. It was just the kind of question that garnered much derision over her Donald Trump interview last week.
By the way, if Kelly cares about what happens to someone wrongly accused, she ought to get on the phone right away to Eric Holder for having wrongly accused him, in at least 45 segments, of not prosecuting a voter intimidation case (where no voter intimidation occurred) out of racial favoritism toward African Americans.
Count me as someone staunchly sympathetic to the police as well as the African American community but this was no attempt to provide a fair and balanced look at a difficult and tragic situation.
After Kelly’s attempt to be a Barbara-Walters-Oprah-type interviewer spectacularly flopped and set back her “independent,” "straight news anchor" image, it’s as though she has embraced Fox News 101 as a fallback.
Watch her below, from the May 23 The Kelly File.