Fox News to interview Willie Robertson, wife Korie about ‘Duck Dynasty’ controversy, more
If you thought Fox News would be the first network to snag an interview with Willie Robertson following his father Phil’s (brief) suspension from “Duck Dynasty,” you made a pretty smart pick.
As a part of their “All-American New Year” special tomorrow from Steamboat Springs, Colorado on December 31 (at some point from 9:00 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. Eastern time), Willie and his wife Korie are going to speak with Bill Hemmer and Elisabeth Hasselbeck about the situation that led to A&E temporarily suspending the Robertson patriarch over some of the comments that he made in a GQ magazine interview. These comments were criticized heavily by GLAAD over his condemnation of homosexuality on religious grounds, and also his depiction of the South as a place where African-Americans were never downtrodden by their circumstance. (He then went on to say that he “loved” everyone, and was not intending to show disrespect.)
We cannot really blame Willie and Korie for having an interest in heading to the cable news channel for this interview; they line up with their own conservative beliefs, and likely feel at first that it will be the most favorable interview to them and their audience. As for whether or not that ends up being the case, that remains to be seen. Most of Fox News has been supportive of the entire Duck Commander clan since the drama began, even though Bill O’Reilly did take Phil to task to the extent that he referred to the decision to single out homosexuals as a “mistake,” claiming that it is always a difficult road to go down to say publicly that one group is not “worthy” of being loved in the eyes of God.
What will be interesting beyond this is seeing if the Robertson family does choose to do more interviews, or simply opt to sit most of the rest of the interview circuit out where they could continue to promote the show. The truth here is that they really don’t have to do TV press in order to draw big viewers from their fanbase, so why do them? At this point, they may be better suited to just do an interview or two, and then go back to Louisiana to be with the family. Otherwise, you run the risk of being bombarded with the same questions; and in the case of Willie, he would be bombarded with questions over something that he never said in the first place.