There were lots of huge dollar sums swirling alongside rumors that Megyn Kelly might defect from Fox News. But the star host’s impending move to NBC News was reportedly determined not by money, but by flexibility. The 46-year-old chose NBC despite it not matching Fox’s $20 million per year bid because it offered her a daytime slot that would allow for more family time.
This isn’t the first instance of Kelly choosing work-life balance over the big bucks.
In a conversation with Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg at Coins2Day‘s Most Powerful Women summit in 2014, Kelly chronicled how she’d moved from a career as a lawyer to journalism about a decade earlier—in part because the news industry offered more flexibility.
“I was burnt out,” she said of her legal career. “I was about eight years into it, and I realized I am more interesting than this and I am more interested than this.” The hours were horrendous, she said. “All my weekends, all my vacations got burned; overnights, 3 a.m. All the time.” She wanted more stability at home and at work: “I realized I could never have a full life with the life I was leading back then, with the profession that I was pursuing back then; there just wasn’t time for it. So I wound up going to a profession that does allow for more flexibility.”
Though her motivation was the same back then, the pay scale was a bit different. When she left her high-paying legal practice, it was for a TV job that paid $17,000 a year.
EUROPE/MIDDLE EAST/AFRICA
| . |
| Take the day |
| Zambia workplaces have observed a so-called Mother's Days—a day once a month when women can be absent due to menstruation—since the 1990s, but the law is now under pressure. Some argue that it's easily taken advantage of and encourages laziness in women. Supporters, meanwhile, say it's a thoughtful benefit for women since menstrual pain can sometimes be debilitating. |
| BBC |
| . |
| This one's for the girls |
| U.K. House of Lords member Shami Chakrabarti, of the Labour party, is facing criticism for establishing a 500,000 pound scholarship fund at Essex University for female students that she says is aimed at eliminating "gender injustice." Tory MP Philip Davies said that if said Chakrabarti really wanted to close the education gap, the fund "would focus almost entirely on helping white working-class boys," since they are underrepresented at universities. |
| Telegraph |
THE AMERICAS
| You're hired! |
| Omarosa Manigault, a lecturer on branding and marketing at Howard University who's best known as a former contestant on Donald Trump's reality show The Apprentice, will join the president-elect's White House team in a role expected to focus on public engagement. Manigault was one of Trump's few African-American surrogates during the campaign and served as his campaign's director of African-American outreach. |
| Coins2Day |
| . |
| Shoes to fill |
| Now that the speculation of Megyn Kelly's next move is over, rumors about who will replace her at Fox News have started. Top contenders include Trish Regan, who currently hosts The Intelligence Report with Trish Regan on the Fox Business Network (FBN), Supreme Court reporter and America's News Headquarters anchor Shannon Bream, FBN reporter and co-host of Outnumbered Sandra Smith, and America's Newsroom co-anchor Martha MacCallum. |
| Coins2Day |
| . |
| Out of fashion? |
| When Stefano Gabbana, one-half of the creative duo that runs Italian label Dolce & Gabanna, shared a photo of Melania Trump wearing a D&G dress to a New Year's Eve celebration on Instagram, not all his followers were pleased. His post thanking Trump and referring to her as a "#DGwoman" prompted some commenters to vow to boycott the brand. Since election night, many designers have pledged to not dress the incoming first lady because of her husband's controversial rhetoric. |
| Refinery29 |
ASIA-PACIFIC
| Not letting it go |
| The BBC has an interview with Rupan Deol Bajaj, the first woman to bring a case of sexual harassment to court in India after a man slapped her on the bottom at a party. Initially, no one wanted to take up her case for fear of retribution (the man was a government official), but she was determined to file it. "I could not get over the enormity of it, letting it go meant living with a lower self-esteem," she said. It took 17 years for the Indian Supreme Court to finally side with her. |
| BBC |
IN BRIEF
| Caitlyn Jenner releases new collaboration with MAC cosmetics |
| Motto |
| How one U.K. Store is fighting 'gendered pricing' |
| Coins2Day |
| Why men don’t want the jobs done mostly by women |
| New York Times |
| Co-working spaces where no boys are allowed |
| Bloomberg |
| Why feminism didn't lose in 2016 |
| Vox |
PARTING WORDS
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| --Oprah Winfrey, declining to answer questions about Donald Trump's impending presidency. |
