Who really won this meet not so cute?<\/b>
\nA day after with Infowars host and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones finally aired, I am of two minds about the whole business. Kelly\u2019s performance exceeded expectations, mine included. Unlike, I\u2019 m not ready to give her a cookie just yet. That\u2019s because Kelly did what any decent interviewer is supposed to do, in that she did not let Alex Jones get away with using the deaths of children in mass murder events committed by unhinged perpetrators as tools of brand expansion. Then again, while a number of reasonable, previously skeptical viewers may be impressed with the way the host acquitted herself, there\u2019s no question that Kelly also bolstered Jones\u2019 profile while not necessarily doing much to elevate hers. The week leading up to the Kelly-Jones face-off yielded a multifaceted debate on journalism\u2019s role in situations that require an interviewer to air a conversation with an odious person. Jones is a wing nut who has built a multimillion-dollar media enterprise on perpetuating baseless and outrageous claims about news reports, with the topmost among them being his claim that the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, was a hoax. Critics and people directly affected by Jones\u2019 malevolent fearmongering called upon NBC News to cancel the interview, and in deference to the families of Sandy Hook victims living in its community, an NBC-owned station in Connecticut did not broadcast it. JPMorgan Chase pulled its advertising. Jones, for his part, between him and Kelly prior to the interview\u2019s recording in which she came across as sympathetic to his point of view. Prior to the broadcast of Sunday\u2019s interview, Kelly was at a distinct disadvantage from a public relations point of view and she immediately took an aggressive stance against Jones as the interview began. During the broadcast in a voiceover after she questions Jones\u2019 labeling the juvenile victims of a suicide bombing at an Ariana Grande concert \u201cliberal trendies, \u201d and he parries with a cry of \u201cmedia misrepresentation, \u201d Kelly tells viewers of Jones\u2019 pattern of reckless accusations, equivocation and excuses. When he attempts to bob and weave in his response to his false declarations about Sandy Hook, she cuts him off with \u201cThat\u2019s a dodge.\u201d Jones insists, \u201cNo, no. It\u2019s not a dodge, \u201d adding, \u201cThe media never covers all the evil wars it\u2019s promoted and all the big things \u2014 \u201d \u201cThat doesn\u2019 t excuse what you did and said about Newtown, \u201d Kelly retorts. \u201cAnd you know it.\u201d Jones then attempts to say that the difference between what he does and coverage by mainstream media is that he \u201clooked at all the angles of Newtown.\u201d In subsequent narration, Kelly replies (correctly) that there are no other angles in terms of the mass shooting that took the lives of 20 children and six adults. As an aside, that\u2019s a fascinating assertion from a person who spent years working for a news organization whose claim to fame was doing what Jones professes to be doing, albeit a tick less outrageously.<\/p>\n

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