Shepard Smith signs with CNBC
This should be interesting. Shepard Smith, the former Fox News anchor with a reputation for impartial coverage (not a given at that network), has signed with CNBC, where he will host “The News With Shepard Smith,” a one-hour weeknight show.
CNBC announced Wednesday.
It’s interesting, to say the least. It will be intriguing to see whether Smith’s semi-iconoclastic nature was just a function of working at Fox News, where taking on the administration isn’t part of the network’s makeup and thus made him an outlier, or if he finds even more freedom in his new role.
It’s also somewhat surprising that he went with CNBC. The smart money would seem to have been on CNN or MSNBC, which have bigger news operations the move and higher profiles.
But CNBC doesn’t have the political baggage either of those carry, particularly MSNBC. (It also doesn’t have the viewers.) A lot of Fox News viewers didn’t care for Smith and his take on the news — they tend to like a certain pro-administration slant to things — but if he’d gone to MSNBC their heads might have exploded, so great would the betrayal have seemed.
Or maybe they just would have joined in a chorus of “I told you so.”
Unafraid to call out misinformation
Smith abruptly quit Fox News in October, a move that took even some colleagues by surprise — he had worked there since 1996, when the network started. Smith simply said on the air that he had requested to leave the network and his bosses obliged.
Smith often rankled President Donald Trump with his straightforward coverage — this at a network where personalities like Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and especially the hosts of the morning show “Fox & Friends” often support Trump to a fault.
When Smith quit, Trump gloated, telling reporters, “Did I hear Shepard Smith is leaving? Is he leaving because of bad ratings? I wish Shepard Smith well.”
No surprise there — Trump often criticized Smith, who wasn’t shy about calling out the president on lies and misrepresentations. After the flap over the clearly doctored map showing the supposed path of Hurricane Dorian, Smith said, “Why would the president of the United States do this? He decries fake news that isn’t, and disseminates fake news that is.”
He’s not wrong. But the truth isn’t a foolproof defense for some, particularly in the Trump White House.
Smith also wasn’t afraid to criticize his Fox News colleagues. He once called Carlson repugnant.
‘I am honored to continue to pursue the truth’
On Wednesday, in the statement released by CNBC, Smith said, “Gathering and reporting the news has been my life’s work. I am honored to continue to pursue the truth, both for CNBC’s loyal viewers and for those who have been following my reporting for decades in good times and in bad.”
There’s been a lot more of the latter than the former lately. So welcome back. When Smith left the air in October, he said, “Even in our currently polarized nation, it’s my hope that the facts will win the day. That the truth will always matter, that journalism and journalists will thrive.”
It’s only been a few months, but it seems like eons. It will be worth tuning in to see how Smith adapts. spirit folks happy: “Virus surges in Arizona, but the rodeo goes on.”
That would be the Round Valley Rodeo, which did indeed go on.
“Such is the way fiercely independent Arizona has handled the virus from the start,” the story reads. “Mr. Ducey, a probusiness conservative Republican who once ran an ice cream company and is a former state treasurer, has pressed a philosophy of personal responsibility and individual choice. That has largely left individuals in Arizona to decide for themselves whether to go to gyms, churches, rallies — or rodeos.”
Ducey, naturally, is a major part of most of these stories. He’s not the lightning rod for publicity that, say, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has been, because Ducey, while at times making claims for the safety of the state that numbers don’t back up, isn’t as confrontational about it. He limits most statements to semi-regular media briefings. He’s got a pretty low-key demeanor, at least publicly.
It’s the numbers that keep grabbing the headlines. And will continue to until they start heading down.
Get used to the spotlight. With Arizona a battleground state in the 2020 presidential election and one Trump visited as recently as June 24 in a mask-optional-and-thus-lightly-worn rally, we’re going to get plenty of coverage, whether we want it or not. Sometimes we will, sometimes we won’t.
But the headlines are going to keep coming regardless.