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Megyn Kelly’s controversial Alex Jones interview elicited praise, disgust

NBC host Megyn Kelly. Victoria Will/Invision/AP

By Kevin Slane

2 minutes to read

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After a week of buildup, backlash, retooling, and preemption, Megyn Kelly’s interview with Infowars founder and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones aired without incident Sunday night on NBC.

Kelly faced criticism from the relatives of victims of the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, for giving Jones a platform for his conspiracy theories. Jones has said he believes that the shooting was a government hoax that used child actors.

Reactions to the interview varied widely, with some continuing to argue that giving Jones a platform was the wrong idea. But many viewers — liberal, moderate, and conservative — applauded Kelly for doing her job and giving Jones a tough interview.

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Not every review of the interview was glowing, though.  In a Boston Globe opinion piece headlined “Megyn Kelly’s interview with a sweaty, stammering Alex Jones wasn’t worth it,” University of Maine journalism professor Michael J. Socolow criticized Kelly for being unable to glean any new information from Jones, arguing that the piece “lacked real news value.”

“As in her interviews with Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, Kelly proved unable to generate surprising, interesting, or even novel responses from her subject,” Socolow wrote. “The package’s heat was sparked only by Kelly’s skeptical challenges — largely sidestepped by a stammering, sweaty Jones — and cutaways to Kelly’s disapproving facial expressions.”

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Washington Post media columnist Margaret Sullivan gave the segment a mixed review as well, saying that it avoided any major pratfalls but still elevated Jones’ profile.

Perhaps the most interesting review came from Politico’s Jack Shafer, who criticized those who wanted the interview scrapped in the first place, comparing their pre-adjudication of the interview to censorship in Soviet Russia.

“We don’t abandon free thought and press freedom just because there’s an outside chance that a piece of journalism like Kelly’s might fall to the advantage of a sordid manipulator or a demagogue,” Shafer wrote the piece, titled ‘Megyn Kelly Pantses Alex Jones.’ “Nor does the unspeakable pain the Sandy Hook parents have endured because of Jones mean we must cleanse the news sphere of coverage that might further upset them. Surely it makes more sense to deal straight on with tin-pots like Jones than cover our eyes and ears in hopes he’ll vanish by himself.”

Many chose not to watch the interview at all, including relatives of victims of the Sandy Hook shooting.

Nelba Márquez-Greene, whose daughter was killed in the shooting and has been openly critical of Kelly leading up to the interview, spent the evening at the International Festival of Arts & Ideas in New Haven, Connecticut.

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