Slate Prevents 'Penguin Santa Claus' Author From Appearing With Fox's Megyn Kelly

December 14th, 2013 1:25 PM

As NewsBusters previously reported, Fox News's Megyn Kelly did a lengthy segment Wednesday concerning Slate "culture blogger" Aisha Harris's displeasure that Santa Claus is always depicted as an old white guy.

After Harris complained about not being contacted by Fox to participate in this segment, Fox representatives asked her to appear Friday only to be informed that Slate refused the invitation (video follows with transcript and commentary):

MEGYN KELLY: Back now to Santa. Ms. Harris, who wrote the original article and then went on a rival cable network to describe our segment as angry, lamented online that she hasn't been asked on our show. We extended that invitation to her tonight, but Slate denied our request. Apparently, that website would rather sling the arrows from the privacy of its offices than allow a fair and balanced debate.

From what I can tell, Harris complained at least twice Thursday for not being invited on Fox to defend herself.

The first such complaint came early Thursday afternoon when she published an article at Slate about Kelly's segment:

"Since Fox didn’t bother reaching out to me personally to debate the issue at hand, I’ll offer up my own response here."

Harris also commented about this on Twitter during a discussion with Jedidiah Bila who was part of the Fox discussion panel Wednesday evening:

So, Harris complained publicly at least twice Thursday about not being able to voice her side.

What happened when Fox asked her to come on Friday's program to discuss it?

So being invited on to face her accusor the very next day after making that request was "Too little, too late."

Says a lot about her and Slate, doesn't it?