According to a survey conducted by Farleigh Dickinson University, Fox News viewers are less informed than those who don’t watch any news. Well, while this is no real surprise, it seems that the lack of true information also extends to FOX’s news staff as well. FOX commentator Megyn Kelly covered the Occupy protests at UC Davis where police pepper sprayed protestors. Kelly then made an appearance on Bill O’Reilly’s show to share her personal experiences. During that show, Kelly volunteered her lack of knowledge of pepper spray asserting that it was essentially just a derivative of a food product and not such a big deal.
Well, it appears that a lot of people watching the show have gotten sprayed with pepper spray and they want Kelly to take a hit of the stuff on TV so she can see how frightening and painful the effects of pepper spray are. An online petition now has 16,000+ signatures. By the way, the active ingredient in pepper spray is oleoresin capsicum (OC), a natural oil found in many types of hot peppers including cayenne peppers, and experts say that an amount as small as one milligram can cause blisters and a severe reaction could lead to neurological problems as well.
What do I think? First, Megyn Kelly should be very content for life to be at FOX news because her “intelligence” level seems to mesh well with her colleagues there. And second, I am a bit surprised as to how many O’Reilly viewers have been sprayed by pepper spray. Either this group of people participate in a lot of political demonstrations that require a militant police presence or they just attend a lot of weird parties. Ah, the real America: it’s so hard to define.