Megyn Kelly’s new book “Settle for More” will either make her very popular or very unpopular in the Fox News building on Sixth Avenue today.
Her stories of harassment by former Fox News chief Roger Ailes are everywhere, and growing. She isn’t leaving a stone unturned. She even throws into the story that Ailes “was in and out of the office for medical treatments, using a walker for a time…”
Kelly recalls in the book that when Gretchen Carlson filed suit against Ailes this summer, it reawakened her told treatment by him. But being disloyal would be a problem.
She writes: I understood my colleagues’ wanting to defend Roger, since loyalty was an absolute job requirement. So was saying nice things about Roger (indeed, failing to compliment him enthusiastically in any press interview would always result in a rebuke).
Indeed, when Kelly first met Ailes, this is what she had thought: The previous year, after then– Fox News anchor Paula Zahn received an offer from CNN, Roger fired her, sued her, and publicly ridiculed her (saying “a dead raccoon” could have outrated her). The Associated Press ran a story about the bare-knuckled campaign against Zahn, concluding, “The underlying message seems clear: It’s not wise to cross Roger Ailes.” Got it, I thought to myself. Not planning to do that.”
Finally, Fox News, she said, started getting their ducks in a row to defend Ailes. “[They were] commencing an intense campaign inside Fox News to get the talent to speak out publicly on his behalf. I was approached several times, and several times I refused. There was no way I was going to lie to protect him. When I refused, he engineered hit pieces about me online, which cited “Fox News insiders,” to suggest that I was being “selfish” for not defending him or looking to improve “my brand” by having a “feminist moment.” It wasn’t true, and it didn’t work.”
By the way, Kelly cites Ailes’ obsession with Gabriel Sherman’s book about him:
“In 2012, I learned that a reporter for New York magazine was writing a book about Roger. This reporter was no fan of Fox News, and certainly not of Roger’s, and Roger became very focused on the project. He seemed to live in constant fear of it. He was so agitated about the book, I began to wonder whether he had something to hide— …When the book came out, it hit Roger on every subject imaginable, but included only one notable reference to an inappropriate incident with a woman— from thirty years earlier.”
