Why Megyn Kelly was right to interview Alex Jones
Before NBC had even aired the second edition of its new show with former Fox News journalist Megyn Kelly, there was rage about its content. Namely, an interview with Alex Jones, a despicable conspiracy theorist, which aired Sunday evening. Jones is the one who screamed after the Sandy Hook massacre of 26 people, including 20 kids, that it all had been staged. Staged by the children’s parents, no less. “Completely fake, with actors.”
There was rage from parents, rage from advertisers, rage from celebrities like Chelsea Clinton, who, albeit untrained, worked a while as a journalist, and therefore should know better than to tweet, “I hope no parent, no person watches this.”
I pity those Sandy Hook parents for the pain this prolongs, but critics like Clinton are shortsighted because there’s a bigger picture to paint: On Kelly’s debut broadcast the week before, Russian President Vladimir Putin was her blockbuster interview. We didn’t hear a peep of protest. Yet Putin is more dangerous than Jones. Jones is just a nauseating nut case. Putin is a Machiavellian megalomaniac who has marched into sovereign states and taken by force what he thinks ought to be his. He has brutally bolstered a Syrian despot. He has slashed the civil liberties of his own citizens. And, incidentally, evidently he hacked his way into American politics.
But both are worth watching, Putin and Jones. The principle is, better to understand an antagonist than to just ignore him. Kelly, on the defensive about the Jones interview, put it this way: “Our goal in sitting down with him was to shine a light … on this influential figure, and yes, to discuss the considerable falsehoods he has promoted with near impunity.” So influential, our president even praises this contemptible man (as he praises Putin, too). We surely won’t make sense of it if we hide our heads in the sand.
What every American has to ask is, who should decide who’s worthy of scrutiny and who’s not? Someone on the left, someone on the right? It’s a slippery slope.
What every journalist has to consider is, interviews like this give scumbags a soapbox, but what’s important is how you handle it. What questions you ask, how you phrase them, the tone you take, how you push back if you don’t get honest answers. Even the expression on your face. It all matters.
I’ve interviewed a range of loathsome losers, from American Nazis to murderers on death row. I’ve interrogated the likes of Moammar Khadafy, who led an oppressive government, and Yasser Arafat, who made his bones as a terrorist, and Ayatollah Khomeini, who created the fanatic-friendly Islamic Republic of Iran. The conversations offered insights to their thinking. Should I have ignored them instead?
Granted, when you’re questioning a tyrant on his turf, you need to hold his feet to the fire, yet protect your own feet from getting burned. You have to take care not to cross a certain line — even though you don’t necessarily know where that line actually is.
It’s especially tough to do in parts of the world where, because local journalists are beholden to their governments for their jobs, people assume the same of us. They’re already suspicious, so ask the wrong question, or ask it the wrong way, you can end up dead, and waving the U.S. Constitution won’t help. My mantra always was, if I’m going to get killed for doing my job, it should be because I was starcrossed, not because I was stupid.
In most of the global trouble spots I covered, journalists came from American news organizations and only a handful of other nations, those that had levels of freedoms that come close to ours. Press coverage is something to value, not revile.
So, Megyn Kelly, you are the latest in a long line of journalists to ascend to a powerful pulpit. Get the newsmakers, whether saints or sinners. Ask the hard questions, especially if it’s here at home, and don’t let them off the hook. We’ll all be smarter, maybe even public policy will be smarter, because of it. Greg Dobbs of Evergreen is an author, public speaker, and former foreign correspondent for ABC News.