The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
It’s too bad factchecker left Fox News
I will miss Shepard Smith, the longtime anchor on the Fox News Channel.
He presented the news accurately and fairly, free of the proTrump pronouncements of those on Fox’s opinion side, such as Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson. Smith even factchecked President Donald Trump.
On Friday, Oct. 11, at the end of his 3 p.m. newscast, Smith stunned viewers and colleagues alike by announcing, “This is my last newscast here.”
He said he asked Fox News to allow him to leave “to begin a new chapter” and that “after requesting that I stay, they graciously obliged.”
Both Smith and Fox insisted that the veteran television journalist jumped and was not pushed.
Smith, 55, had been with Fox News since it was launched by Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes in 1996.
Here is an example of the way Smith factchecked Trump.
At a rally in El Paso, Texas, Trump proclaimed that the city’s border wall “turned a violent city safe.”
Smith noted that violent crime was at a historic low in El Paso when Congress authorized a section of steel fence there in 2006.
I admit Smith sometimes crossed the line from factchecking to opinion.
In 2017, commenting on denials by the Trump team that preelection meetings with Russians were important, Smith said on camera: “Why all these lies? Why is it lie after lie after lie?”
Signs of tension between the newsside and opinionside at Fox News surfaced after Fox commentators joined Trump in condemning the established news media as “fake news.”
In March 2018, Smith was quoted by Time magazine as saying there is a big difference between his kind of reporting and what opinionside players do.
“They can say whatever they want,” said Smith.
Smith engaged in public feuding with Carlson and Hannity. Smith said Fox opinion hosts exist “strictly to be entertaining.”
Carlson said, “Unlike maybe some daytime hosts, I’m not very partisan.” Hannity called Smith “clueless.” Nor did Trump have any love for Smith. In a tweet, the president referred to Smith as Fox’s “lowest ranking anchor.”
It’s true that Smith’s afternoon newscast had lower ratings than Fox’s primetime opinion shows. But it usually beat competing programs on CNN and MSNBC.
There was speculation that Smith’s departure from Fox was decided a few days before at a private meeting between Murdoch and Attorney General William Barr.
A spokesman for Smith said, “This was Shep’s decision, and his alone.” The spokesman added, “He is not retiring.”
Good. But we won’t see him anchoring in the near future because he is still subject to a noncompete requirement.
In his signoff from Fox, Smith told viewers: “Even in our current polarized nation, it is my hope that the facts will win the day, that truth will always matter, that journalism and journalists will thrive.”
It is my hope, too.