This week, Fox News host Megyn Kelly interviewed Kellyanne Conway, the campaign manager for Republican president nominee Donald Trump, following the first presidential debate. The interview was supposed to be about Trump’s performance in the debate, but quickly turned to recent ads from the Clinton campaign focusing on his questionable treatment of women.
Conway accused Clinton of essentially hitting Trump below the belt with her attacks, but not without some protest from Kelly.
This is not the first time Kelly has criticized Trump during this year’s election. She notably questioned him in the first Republican primary debate about public comments he made on women’s appearances. After that debate, Trump tweeted how Kelly “bombed” as a moderator. Later, he told CNN that “there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever.”
Wow, @megynkelly really bombed tonight. People are going wild on twitter! Funny to watch.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 7, 2015
The feud continued between the two, much of it occurring on social media, until last spring when Kelly sat down with Trump for a one-on-one interview.
Even though Kelly and Trump did come to something of a ceasefire, Kelly’s interview with Conway on Wednesday shows that she’s not afraid to bring up the negative aspects of Trump’s campaign.
This exchange between Kelly and Conway made me think about the role of female reporters in this enigma of an election. Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton is making history as the first female candidate of a major party in a presidential election. Her opponent, Trump, has been continuously called out throughout his campaign for misogynist and sexist comments. With more women favoring a Clinton presidency according to a NBC News poll after Monday’s debate, the “women issue” continues to be a polarizing one for the two candidates.
Trump’s comments and the overall rebellious tone of his campaign have created a culture where his supporters perceive his problematic comments as perfectly valid. He attracts voters who are fed up with old-fashioned Washington politics. According to them, he is leading a fight against the repressive political correctness that has taken over our society.
But when these comments cause more harm than good, when they incite violence or when they directly offend the American people, it is first and foremost the job of journalists and reporters to expose their malice. For female reporters specifically, this duty becomes more personal when Trump targets women.
The holy rule of journalism is to remain unbiased when reporting the news. As an aspiring professional journalist myself, I understand how one’s credibility can immediately plummet if it is one-sided. So how do female journalists faced with exposing Trump’s harmful comments carry out this task properly, especially with Trump’s open hatred of “the media” that apparently treats him so unfairly?
Female reporters like Olivia Nuzzi, Sara Murray and Katy Tur have spoken openly about their experiences covering the Trump campaign. In an interview with New York Magazine, Nuzzi spoke about hearing these harmful comments at rallies and other Trump events and making sure they don’t lose their potency.
“Those words and those phrases should be jarring. That should never become normal, and if and when it does, some emotional cost has been extracted,” she said.
Murray and Tur have both penned personal essays for “Cosmopolitan” and “Marie Claire,” respectively, about being personally called out by Trump at rallies and other events. Murray wrote about what it was like to have thousands of Trump supporters turn around and jeer her. Tur has endured multiple attacks from Trump, both in person and on Twitter, where he’s called her out for “dishonest reporting.” He’s also referred to her as “Little Katy” at various events.
But what all three of those women concluded was that while Trump’s comments may be damaging, the only thing they can do as journalists is their job, and do it well.
This brings me back to Megyn Kelly. I have conflicting opinions on Kelly — enough that would probably fill a completely separate column. While I don’t agree with all of her opinions or personal politics, I have an enormous amount of respect for her. As soon as Trump sent his first tweet about her, she was subject to all of his followers’ opinions, and her “feud” with Trump made headlines for months. But, she has never allowed her experiences to stop her from criticizing and questioning Trump’s treatment of women.
Kelly and all female journalists covering the Trump campaign have proven that good journalism carries on even when it is challenged by extremely powerful forces. These forces can come from anywhere: civilians, Twitter users or even presidential candidates of a major political party.
