New York Magazine is out with a special issue, Women and Power, and while you’ll recognize the majority of the names, two stand out in the TV news world: NBC News’ Megyn Kelly and Andrea Mitchell.
NY Mag White House correspondent Olivia Nuzzi spoke with the Megyn Kelly Today host about power:
Were you conscious at Fox of how powerful you became, at least in terms of the public perception of you?
AdvertisementOne of the things people don’t understand is the difference between power and success. For me, I realized I had power, but I didn’t have success. People will be confused by that because I had very strong ratings, and I had a lot of editorial freedom, but I wasn’t seeing my children grow up at all. I was failing. I was failing as a human being. The overall score card of my life had an F even though professionally it had an A because of the value I put on those two different things.
I joined NBC in May of ’17. For two years now, I have not had a single complaint about not getting enough time with my children. Every night I’ve had dinner with them. Every night I get to tuck them in and be the one who lies next to them and hears the stories about the day and helps them navigate their problems. For me, that’s everything.
I need to work. I need to financially, but I need to for my own sanity. Have I found the perfect balance? Not quite. I’m working on it.
NY Magazine’s Lisa Miller spoke with the longtime NBC News chief foreign affairs correspondent for the issue:
In order to rise back then, did you make capitulations to male culture or to sources or to ways of telling stories that you feel ambivalent about now?
When I look back at my coverage of Anita Hill and Clarence Thomas on that pivotal Friday night of the first day of the hearings, I remember Tom Brokaw was anchoring, and he asked me, “What have we learned?” It was close to midnight. I said something I can’t believe I said on television. I said, “I think we learned that the United States Senate is the last great plantation in American government.” So I didn’t trim my sails at all on that, and no one asked me to…