NPR: Stephen Kent offers insight into new conservative show for Rightly & Al Jazeera

Al Jazeera Is Launching A Right-Leaning News Outlet Called Rightly - Bill Chappell

Kent's show will debut on Thursday, according to Politico, which first reported on Al Jazeera's new venture. The outlet's goal, Politico's Playbook states, is to lure "center-right folks who feel left out of mainstream media." Rightly's editor-in-chief will reportedly be Scott Norvell, a veteran of Fox News.

In an email to NPR, Kent said he wants his show, called Right Now, to host discussions about how ideas such as classical liberalism can fit into today's political environment. It will not be, he said, yet another arena for fights between Democrats and Republicans – or even between old-school Republicans and supporters of former President Donald Trump.

"This show is a forum about the fight within the right over its commitment to liberalism, the ethic of accommodation, and openness," Kent said. "That tradition is under attack on the left and right. But I can't settle the left's increasingly complicated relationship with liberalism. So my focus will be on the right and building the case over time for why the liberal tradition is worth defending."