When Midtown Manhattan slowly stirs to life each weekday morning, Gretchen Carlson has been going at full speed for hours.
In the News Corporation building on Sixth Avenue, she is seated on the mustard-colored couch of Fox & Friends, cable's top-rated morning talk show, as she and her co-hosts segue between a bit about Martha Stewart's new television special, an update on Hurricane Earl and a report about a Massachusetts mom who fell asleep at the wheel and crashed her SUV into a convenience store.
When the cameras cut to commercial, Carlson whips out her BlackBerry to update the show's Twitter feed, text her children's babysitter or check on her volunteer work. (She is the March of Dimes national spokeswoman.) Asked about this later, Carlson says friends occasionally email her back, "Aren't you on live TV right now?" She chuckles. "I love to multitask."
Carlson, '90, has been a co-anchor of Fox & Friends since 2005. After decades in the news business, she is now a media figure whose words are part of the national debate about ideology and politics. Fox & Friends is popular (approximately 1 million viewers each episode), but reviled by many on the left, who regard it as a mouthpiece for conservatives. Carlson's clips are dissected by liberal-leaning news watchdog Media Matters and skewered by Jon Stewart on The Daily Show, who has accused Carlson of intentionally "dumbing down" her reports to pander to the audience.
Carlson—a registered Independent—says she pays no attention to the criticism of bloggers and late-night comedians, and makes no apologies for her role. "This kind of show is what I always wanted to do. I wanted to be able to show the multifaceted side of who I am. . . . You have to be smart. You have to have a funny bone. You have to have a quirky side," she says. One moment she may be guiding a discussion about Iran's nuclear capability and the next interviewing the Jonas Brothers.
Carlson's biography is as eclectic as a typical show's lineup.
Growing up in Anoka, Minn., she was a violin prodigy. She trained with a Juilliard instructor and planned a professional music career before making, at the age of 17, what she calls "the most important decision of my life." Knowing that a career as a violinist would demand single-minded devotion, Carlson abandoned those aspirations in favor of Stanford and a path that would accommodate interests beyond music.
She was a Stanford sophomore when her mother suggested that she enter the Miss America pageant. Carlson initially balked. What swayed her were the financial aid benefits—the contest is the world's largest provider of scholarships solely for women—and the fact that talent counted for 50 percent of one's score.
She kept her participation in the pageant secret from everyone at Stanford—so secret, in fact, that when dormmates at Casa Italiana gathered around the television to watch the 1989 Miss America pageant they were shocked to see their neighbor wearing a tiara and waving from the stage. Carlson stopped out of Stanford for two years to prepare for the pageant and fulfill her Miss America obligations, then returned to graduate with honors.
She was preparing to attend law school when a television appearance opened a different door. As the new Miss America, she was invited on a news program to introduce a segment about which she'd received no briefing. It turned out to be a set-up for a prank on TV's Bloopers and Practical Jokes. When the cameras went live, her hosts walked out, forcing her to fill 15 minutes of dead air with impromptu commentary. Her poise earned her several calls from agents after the show aired, asking if she'd be interested in a television career.
HIGH NOTE
Carlson performed Zigeunerweisen by Spanish composer Pablo de Sarasate during the Miss America competition in 1989, becoming the only classical violinist ever to win the crown.
IF YOU'RE KEEPING SCORE
Clients represented by sports agent Casey Close, Carlson's husband, include Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter and Giants catcher Buster Posey.
PRIZED JOURNALIST
Carlson was awarded a Gracie for her 30-part series on domestic violence while working as a TV reporter in Dallas in 1999.
Well aware of the stereotypes attached to beauty pageant contestants, Carlson knew what people were thinking when she walked into the newsroom of her first TV job in Richmond, Va.—and at the job after that, and the job after that. "Here comes that dumb bimbo."
She used it as motivation to work harder.
She went from Richmond to TV newsrooms in Cincinnati, Cleveland, Dallas and finally to New York City, where she was a general assignment reporter for CBS News and later host of the Saturday Early Show. Along the way, she won three American Women in Radio and Television National Awards and two local Emmys. Her move to Fox & Friends provided a more structured work schedule and gave her extra time with her husband Casey Close, a sports agent, and their children, Kaia and Christian, now 7 and 5.
Unlike reporting gigs, the talk show format gives her the freedom to offer her opinions, and live television—where "there are no do-overs"—is "exhilarating." She has learned to walk the line between news and entertainment, fact and commentary, says Lauren Petterson, executive producer of Fox & Friends. "Gretchen understands that balance. . . . She knows when to take the news seriously and when to take herself not so seriously."
Friends and co-workers describe Carlson as warm and generous, but unflinching on camera. "If something is not right, a tough situation where she wants to be an advocate for the viewer . . . she can be that predator and she's not afraid of it," says Sharon Chang, Carlson's agent since 1998.
Her willingness to push was evident in an interview with White House press secretary Robert Gibbs last August. Carlson repeatedly asked whether President Obama would give credit to former President Bush for the troop surge in Afghanistan that Gibbs acknowledged was an important turning point in the war. The two sparred for several minutes with Gibbs suggesting she was "playing political games," and Carlson insisting he wasn't answering the question.
Carlson is one of many television personalities crossing the line between the dispassionate reporting of the old media era and the fiercely partisan crossfire of the new one. Fox News launched in 1996, just as the Internet was transforming news consumption. The arrival of opinion in cable news, Carlson says, was "brilliant foresight" on the part of Fox News president Roger Ailes, who realized that viewers already knew the day's events—what kept their attention was hearing other people's thoughts about them.
Carlson believes television news will never go back to its just-the-facts approach, nor should it. No matter which side of the debate you're on, she says, the dialogue is compelling. "Either I really agree with that, or I really disagree with that, but I can't stop watching."
CORINNE PURTILL, ’02, is a freelance writer based in New York City.
