• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, October 1, 2015

Scratching your head over why Fox News has continued senior-level off-air meetings with Donald Trump  -- especially after he said he won’t appear on the cable news network?

It’s been no secret Trump believes he hasn’t been treated well by the network, going back to misgivings over Megyn Kelly during the first Republican Presidential Debate.

And then.. surprise! Trump is now back on the network, most recently on “The O’Reilly Factor.” So, what was said on the QT? We might never know.

But I do know this: If you are journalist, you ask questions -- pretty much any questions you want, especially of Presidential candidates. If you’re a really good journalist, you probably piss people off. Good for you. That’s your job. If your interviewees can’t stand the heat, let them go elsewhere.

But off-air “meetings” with candidates? Hmmm...  That’s a concern.  Fox News, or any other news network, doesn’t to do this. It doesn’t help market a good image among one’s loyal news followers.

The wildly popular recent Republican debates have brought high ratings for Fox News Channel and then CNN, pulling in an eye-popping 24 million and 22 million viewers respectively.

Yes, Trump has a lot to do with it. And, in that regard, all cable news networks have some lightning in a bottle -- for the moment anyway.

Fox News Channel in the third quarter of this year registered its first ever victory as the highest-rated prime-time network. It pulled in 1.99 million average viewers, versus 1.64 million in the second quarter.

Mind you, other networks also showed improvements: CNN was at 827,000 prime-time viewers versus 577,000 in the second quarter; MSNBC, at 640,000 versus 525,000.

What TV content works on cable news networks now? Many would point to controversial commentary or perhaps news stories -- both wild and tame -- political, general news and otherwise.

CNN has been revamping with some decent gains; now MSNBC is taking a shot. It considers straight news stories as the way to go forward, as well as a rejiggering of its daytime on-air journalists, including the arrival of controversial ousted NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams.

People will complain about Brian Williams and his now-questionable “trust.” But also don’t trust secret meetings with key news subjects. Instead, ask more tough questions.