Frighten and titillate. Frighten and titillate. Those are the orientating words a new employee, Kayla Pospisil played by Margot Robbie, gets from a more experienced reporter at Fox News about what constitutes a Fox story in the film Bombshell. Kayla, an ‘evangelical millennial’, seems to understand Fox’s notion of ‘fair and balanced.’ The news reportage is fair, the opinion shows balance the ‘liberal bias’ of American media.

Megyn Kelly, a one-time Fox News anchor and one of the main characters in Bombshell, wrote in her book Settle for More, that she too was asked about whether she understood what ‘fair and balanced’ meant, yet she doesn’t give us her take on it. However, she does say America has become a ‘cupcake nation, trying to eliminate offensive or even differing viewpoints and, with them, our grit and resilience’. In the book she goes on to defend people like Ayaan Hirsi Ali who is known for her anti-Muslim rhetoric and Pamela Geller who organised a ‘draw Muhammad’ contest.