10 Years of Shepard Smith on The Fox Report…
A couple of articles on Shepard Smith’s 10 year anniversary on the Fox Report. The New York Daily News’ Richard Huff does one here…
Monday marks Smith’s 10th anniversary as host of Fox News Channel’s “Fox Report,” which airs weeknights at 7. The show will mark his tenure with a montage of clips of him and the show.
“I feel incredibly lucky to be doing what I love for the past 10 years and am very proud of my staff and colleagues for their hard work and dedication in making ‘The Fox Report’ the No. 1 newscast on cable,” Smith said in a statement.
The Orlando Sentinel’s Hal Boedeker does another here…
“I like the news,” says Smith, an alum of the Orlando TV market. “I don’t want to get into that scream-at-each-other stuff. It’s not what I want to do. I grew up wanting to be a reporter. Politics, ginning up emotions on both sides — it’s just ponderous. I don’t have any time for it.”
Ratings for “The Fox Report” are “way, way up,” Smith says with pride.
How high? At 7 p.m., “The Fox Report” is No. 3 in all of cable, and Smith beats CNN’s Lou Dobbs and MSNBC’s Chris Matthews combined, Fox News notes. His ratings have risen 27 percent from the same time last year. And 2009 is his best year ever in the ratings.
Update: TVNewser has a Smith interview as well…
September 14, 2009 at 8:42 am
Shepard Smith is simply the best television news anchor (broadcast and/or cable). Everyone else is fighting for 2nd place.
September 14, 2009 at 8:50 am
Shep Smith is the only thing on Fox worth watching; the rest is just comedy (and not very funny at that). Furthermore, he has the best news show on cable tv, period.
September 14, 2009 at 8:59 am
Chips, totally agree. Shep is #1. It’s not even close.
September 14, 2009 at 11:33 am
Uh oh. We think his success has gone to his head and that in the last year, he’s let him personal political opinions color how he covers the news.
September 14, 2009 at 12:37 pm
I don’t see that, BW. There’s a difference between complete neutrality and real reporting. Shep is a good reporter who knows when it’s time to call a spade a spade.
September 14, 2009 at 2:02 pm
To piggy-back on joe’s comment (don’t get excited, bud), I accept that a reporter is human and has his or her own personal opinions about what’s happening in the world, and so I’m not terribly bothered if that comes out once in a while.
Far more important to me is that, even when Mr. Smith has shown an opinion on a topic (different than mine or not), he still either manages to fairly present the story from the most neutral perspective practical or he fairly re-states the story from a differing perspective.
September 14, 2009 at 3:44 pm
Sorry, Joe, but he went after Sarah Palin with a vengeance last year. We remember one show in which he was rattling off every HuffPost/Daily Kos conspiracy theory about her, even though none of them were true. In fact, if he’d read his own company’s website, he’d have seen a page where neutral (or as close to neutral as one can get) third-party sources (such as the AP and major news organizations) had already debunked them.
He also lit into Joe the Plumber when he came on Studio B to ineptly explain why he agreed with someone at a rally who said that electing Obama would mean the death of Israel. True, JtP should not have delved into that area, but it was rather unseemly for Smith to start yelling about how Obama not only said that he supports Israel, but that he repeatedly proven so (with actions). A blatant lie.
The most egregious? When he said something on Election Night about how wonderful it was that the south was now going to elect a black man to the White House. For Smith, it was all about his white southern guilt issues. He’s made other remarks about racial issues vis a vis growing up in the south.
We no longer trust him.
September 14, 2009 at 3:46 pm
We hate to have to disagree with you, Al, but in the last year, we’ve watched him spew his political opinions as facts, while still claiming that he’s fair and balanced.
For someone who loudly and repeatedly prides himself on keeping his politics to himself, we believe he’s done a rather poor job of that in the last year.
September 14, 2009 at 4:58 pm
BW, is “we” your spouse, or should we be introduced to your alternate personalities?
September 14, 2009 at 5:29 pm
BW, if we all always agreed then this blog would be a diary. I’ve also seen Shepard Smith challenge false claims made about Gov. Palin.
Private citizen Joe Wurzelbacher questioning candidate Obama’s version of reality while in his own neighbourhood is one thing, but when ‘Joe The Plumber’ goes on the circuit with his views then he should not be given a free pass by any news organisation including FOX. Unseemly or not, in that circumstance it was entirely appropriate for the interviewer to challenge a questionable claim. In other words, had Mr. Smith not done that then FNC would be guilty of what we often criticise MSNBC for doing.
September 15, 2009 at 5:59 am
Joe, there are 2 of us who use this handle, and we agree on most major issues.
Al, I’d love to know more about Smith challenging false claims about Gov. Palin, especially after he spewed a bunch of them himself.
We agree that Joe the Plumber had no business going on a TV news show to hold forth about foreign policy and rightly got his ass handed to him, but the manner in which Smith did so was disreputable, in our opinion. We still eagerly await Smith’s proof that Obama has ever demonstrated support (other than words) for Israel.
In other words, what Smith said in Obama’s defense was no better (and maybe worse) than Wurzelbacher mouthing off and when asked to back it up, told Smith that his listeners (yes, he said listeners, not viewers) should look it up and educate themselves.
September 15, 2009 at 9:48 am
Wurzelbacher is a clown with no business spouting “opinions” on television. Shep gave him the smackdown he deserved, then probably marched into Ailes’ office and said, “You wanted him on my show…he was on my show. Happy?”
September 15, 2009 at 12:05 pm
Unprepared for the bright spotlight of televised political commentary, certainly, but Mr. Wurzelbacher is not a “clown”. He’s just someone with one set of average “Joe” opinions.
September 15, 2009 at 12:11 pm
Joe, Joe, Joe. Please pay attention. We already noted that JtP had no business going on a (purported) news show to discuss foreign policy issues.
Our issue is with how Smith defended Obama: with some assertions that are less than honest, to put it mildly.
Maybe Smith wanted him on his show so that he could smack him around verbally and score some pro-Obama points without the kind of resistance that he’d get from an educated and savvy pundit.
Let’s just say that Ailes ordering him to put people on his show isn’t the way it generally works there.
September 15, 2009 at 12:54 pm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9eSJuWgZGYo
Watching the interview again, I cannot characterise Mr. Smith’s demeanor with BW’s “smack him around”. He was factually accurate regarding what Mr. Obama had repeatedly said pertaining to Israel and only at the very end did he interject a personal opinion about the current state of discourse of political debate.
For his part, Mr. Wurzelbacher also did well throughout that interview and refused to “take the bait”, instead, remaining correctly modest concerning the value of his own opinions.
It was a good interview conducted with the appropriate level of skepticism by Mr. Smith. Because I am unrestrained by journalistic standards and have the benefit of hindsight to support my position, though, it is fair for me to say that Mr. Smith did not show adequate skepticism toward Mr. Obama’s words. We now know that President Obama’s subjective words do not necessarily equate to his objective intentions.
September 15, 2009 at 1:41 pm
We now know that President Obama’s subjective words do not necessarily equate to his objective intentions.
Now that’s a sentence. I don’t necessarily know what it means, but it’s huge fun to read.
The Plumber is not qualified to be a spokesman for the Right, yet took the role, anyway. It’s tantamount to putting me on TV to criticize Bush. I’m an average Joe with opinions, not a spokesman.
September 15, 2009 at 2:55 pm
Based upon his own words, I think Joe The Plumber agrees with you, joe.
September 15, 2009 at 3:43 pm
Now that’s a sentence. I don’t necessarily know what it means, but it’s huge fun to read.
Why same something using only two or three words when it’s so easy to say the same thing while filling up half a paragraph? I called President Obama a liar.
September 15, 2009 at 3:48 pm
same=say in “Al-type”, btw
September 15, 2009 at 4:02 pm
Thanks for the YouTube, Al. The very end proves our point: that Smith insisted that Obama “repeatedly demonstrated” support for Israel, when the opposite is true.
September 15, 2009 at 4:22 pm
Repeatedly demonstrating support for Israel is not necessarily a prerequisite for high office. There’s a conflict over there, and one of the things I voted for was a president who didn’t see it as One Side Good, One Side Evil. It’s a lot more complicated than that.
September 15, 2009 at 4:49 pm
Israel agreed to just about everything the Palestinians wanted and were still turned down. The publicly stated goal of their enemy is the annihilation of Israel and we are bound by treaty and moral duty to defend them. So it’s not complicated at all.
September 15, 2009 at 5:01 pm
I have no problem with the treaty, and have no interest in Israel being made The Bad Guy, but I don’t support the the mantra that politicians have to pledge repeated allegience to them or be considered anti-Israel.
September 15, 2009 at 5:51 pm
^
That’s reasonable enough.
September 15, 2009 at 7:32 pm
^
Wow, that was easy. Too easy. Hmmmm…
September 15, 2009 at 9:11 pm
Repeatedly demonstrating support for Israel is not necessarily a prerequisite for high office.
It is self-evident that Israel’s survival is precarious. And even without factoring Israel in, the stability of that entire region has been just as precarious. Since the end of WW2, there has been only two things that have proven to offer some semblance of stability:
1. Greed: The wealth those nations enjoy through the selling of oil to America.
2. Fear: America’s consistent and unequivocal support for and active defence of Israel regardless of which political party has been in power.
The attacks on America by Usama Bin Laden, et al are aimed at upsetting that very stability. By not proclaiming the continued and unequivocal support of Israel even as we go through a change in government , the terrorists get closer to achieving their goal.
The requisite mantra, as you call it, is not for our ears.
September 16, 2009 at 9:50 am
Who said that demonstrating support for Israel is a prerequisite for any elected office?
It is, however, a hot button issue for many people and it’s disreputable for Smith to misrepresent the truth.