![]() ![]() I did his show on MTV and he returned the favor and did an episode of “Spin City.” When he took over from Kilborn he asked me to be on it, so I happily agreed. I love the way we interact with the world.” And he told me later that in the process of helping me to arrive at my decision, he realized it sounded like a great job. I had been offered Kilborn and in the process of trying to decide whether I should go to “Late Late Show,” I called Jon, who was my really good friend, and said, “What do I do?” And he had said: “Well, do you like coming to work at ‘The Daily Show’ every day?” And I said: “Yes, I love it. And the writers would come in at 9 and start writing, and at 1 o’clock the jokes would come in and you knew whether or not you had a show. You would pull this imaginary lever and five stories would come up and that was what you had to work with. I always describe it as playing slot machines with the world. Because of the nature of the way the show was produced, the thing that you’re focusing on with all your might is the news of that day. ![]() Guests were not the first thing that we thought about. I’d love to say I planned some amazing premiere episode for Jon for his first show, but I think it was just the way the guests dropped. One gag involved a Senator Jesse Helms action figure that, Stephen Colbert deadpanned, came with a gay figure for the Helms doll to hate. The opening jokes were about President Clinton’s impeachment trial. And if we don’t tell it at Fox News, in all likelihood some of these stories won’t get told.When Jon Stewart took over the anchor’s seat of “The Daily Show” from Craig Kilborn, nobody was quite sure what to expect. but that is like as (colleague) Brit Hume used to say, ‘Like picking money up off the street,’ because it’s a story that’s just waiting there for somebody to grab it and tell. Sometimes I think there’s value in that and some of these stories get completely blown off by many in the mainstream media. So, I don’t mind being one of the outliers. And then, lo and behold, several months will pass something will come out to prove that we were right. Benghazi is a good example where we’ve been covering that story because many of us believe that it is a story and that we haven’t gotten the full truth on what happened. I guess I would say, ‘outliers.’ Oftentimes it feels like Fox stands alone in the media on certain stories. Do you feel the same way?Ī: I don’t know if I would sign on to underdogs. Q: Your colleague Shepard Smith has said he believes the network is an underdog despite being atop the ratings. ![]() I didn’t know what the future held, but once I got my law degree I started to feel like, ‘OK, I’m a serious person.’ I was popular and I enjoyed that, and my mother kept telling me I better take typing so I’d have something to fall back on. I was a small-town girl who wasn’t surrounded at all by any powerful people or anybody with any connections growing up, so I had no practice nor was I ever at the top of my class or being told that great things were ahead of me. But I think that ability to control an interview and stand up to strong, powerful people was developed in my legal practice. Q: You also have a reputation for challenging your colleagues on air, specifically on sexism.Ī: I was always a strong personality. In law, especially back in ‘95 when I was breaking in, it was much more of an old boys’ network. It’s not to say that there’s no sexism or discrimination against women, but I think we have more power. There are so many of us (women) in broadcast journalism that we have more power. Q: Have you run into any sexism as a woman in TV media?Ī: I had more sexist encounters as a lawyer than I had as a journalist. I said, ‘Well, it sounds like you’re looking for absolution, and I’m not giving it.’ We had a good laugh. He explained that he didn’t mean to be mean and that he does satire and that he claimed I was ‘one of the three journalists he respects.’ He used to do these segments on me all the time, and then one day on the air I said he was mean and then he called me up, and we had an hour-long talk. Q: You and your network have often been a favorite punching bag for Jon Stewart on Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show.”Ī: Stewart doesn’t bother me as much as he used to. ![]() I guess that’s to be expected when they give you the microphone at 9 p.m. A: I wouldn’t say it’s an accomplishment so much as it’s an acknowledgement of something I felt over the past six or seven months since I’ve taken this job, which is just a growing market power, and that’s good. ![]()
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