The New Star at Fox News

Megyn Kelly

Megyn Kelly is not new to Fox News, but she is the new kid on the block in prime time and her star is rising and her ratings are rising fast.

Kelly is featured in this month's Elle magazine and they point out how she has quickly become a ratings juggernaut.

Elle writes Since Kelly returned from maternity leave and launched The Kelly File last October 7, she has blazed a vivid-ratings trail, outdrawing both major cable competitors—MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow and CNN’s Piers Morgan—combined, in both total audience and the 25-to-54 demographic crucial to advertisers. Kelly has even occasionally beaten the Big Daddy of cable news, Bill O’Reilly, in that key demo. She’s quick to credit the big push O’Reilly has given her as the lead-in to her show, and she knows her debut was marvelously timed, coming on the eve of Congress’s freak-out over raising the nation’s debt ceiling (failure to do so would only have destroyed the global financial system), the budgetary standoff that led to the 16-day-long government shutdown, and the epic meltdown over Obama-care and the Healthcare.gov website.

As for getting her big break?

The article says Bill Lord, a man with an easy laugh and a magnanimous manner, was the news director at WJLA, ABC’s Washington, DC, affiliate, who gave Kelly her big break scarcely a decade ago. He doesn’t remember her holding to an ideological stance. “Even now, I’m not sure what it is,” he says. “There was nothing about her political views that would have even come up in a conversation here.” Reminded that FOX News Channel, too, purports to be “fair and balanced,” Lord chortles indulgently and says, “They have a number of people, and I would put Megyn among them, whose journalism transcends some of the ideological biases. I think they want to have newscasts in addition to the kind of all-day live talk—and I think Megyn is a great person to do that.”