Ex-Fox News executive joins White House staff
Bill Shine named as the director of communications
WASHINGTON — Former Fox News Channel executive Bill Shine is joining the White House as assistant to the president and deputy chief of staff for communications, t he White House announced Thursday.
The move follows weeks of speculation that the former Fox News Channel and Fox Business Network co-president was a frontrunner for the job, which has remained vacant since former communications director Hope Hicks announced her resignation in February.
In a statement, the White House said Shine “brings over two decades of television programming, communications, and management experience to the role.” He will be tasked with establishing the broader message and tone of the president’s agenda.
Shine, who started his two-decade-long career at Fox News as a producer for the show “Hannity & Colmes,” was ousted from his role as co-president last year after lawsuits suggested he enabled alleged sexual harassment by the network’s late chairman and chief executive, Roger Ailes.
Shine had recently been seen at the White House and has previously met with President Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. He was spotted Thursday getting into Trump’s motorcade, according to CNN.
With Thursday’s announcement, Shine becomes the fifth communications chief since Trump took office nearly 18 months ago. Before Hicks, Former Fox News executive Bill Shine helped build the network, but his long tenure was clouded by unsavory allegations related to sexual harassment. Anthony Scaramucci served 10 days in the role. He was preceded by Mike Dubke and Sean Spicer.
The move will bolster the White House’s messaging operation ahead of what is shaping up to be a fierce partisan battle over Trump’s choice for a successor to retiring Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, set to be unveiled Monday. It also comes ahead of a trip by Trump next week to Europe, where one of the most closely-scrutinized items on the agenda will be the president’s one- on- one summit with his Russian counterpart, President Vladimir Putin.
Yet the appointment is also likely to open the White House up to attacks regarding Shine’s record at Fox, as well as the Trump administration’s response to sexual misconduct allegations against officials within its own ranks. During his time at Fox, Shine helped to build the network into the media juggernaut it is today. But much like his mentor and patron, Ailes, Shine’s long tenure was clouded by unsavory allegations and associations with darker chapters in the network’s history. Ailes died in May 2017.
Donald Trump Jr., the president’s eldest son, was among those cheering Shine’s hiring Thursday — while also anticipating a backlash from the left.
“On your marks, get set.... how long till the l i beral media and snowflakes start taking shots at the great Bill Shine?” he wrote on Twitter. “Competent, hard working and a believer in making America great again!”
Angelo Carusone, president of the left-leaning group Media Matters for America, said in a statement that it was “no surprise that the White House selected someone who has Sean Hannity’s personal seal of approval.”
He described Shine as having been “at the helm of Fox News as it transitioned from being a partisan political operation to a proTrump propaganda arm” and as having “enabled serial sexual misconduct for years.”
Shine was also implicated in racial discrimination lawsuits filed by Fox employees. That action was settled in May.