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Shepard Smith, Fox News Anchor, Abruptly Departs From Network Shepard Smith Leaves Fox News
(32 minutes later)
Shepard Smith, the chief news anchor of Fox News, said on Friday that he was leaving the cable news network, an abrupt move that left some of his co-workers openly stunned. Shepard Smith, the chief news anchor of Fox News whose reporting often drew the ire of President Trump, said on Friday that he was leaving the cable news network after 23 years, an abrupt move that left some of his co-workers openly stunned.
Mr. Smith joined Fox News when the network started, in 1996. During the years that he has anchored major news events, he has also sparred, at times, with the network’s prime time news commentators, a group that includes Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson. “Recently, I asked the company to allow me to leave Fox News,” Mr. Smith told viewers at the close of his regular broadcast. “After requesting that I stay, they obliged.”
Last month, Mr. Smith was sharply critical of Mr. Carlson. On his show, “Shepard Smith Reporting,” Mr. Smith that it was “repugnant” that a guest on Mr. Carlson’s show was allowed to call a regular Fox News contributor, the legal analyst Andrew Napolitano, “a fool” for saying that President Trump’s request for a favor from the Ukrainian prime minister constituted a crime. A fixture of Fox News, Mr. Smith joined the network as a correspondent at its start in 1996 and became one of its most visible journalists. He is leaving in the middle of his current contract, a rarity in the cutthroat television business, and he told viewers on Friday that under his exit agreement, “I won’t be reporting elsewhere at least in the near future.”
Mr. Carlson fired back at Mr. Smith on his own program, mocking Mr. Smith’s comments and saying, “Unlike maybe some dayside hosts, I’m not very partisan.” Since Mr. Trump took office, Mr. Smith has stood out at Fox News for his tough coverage of the White House — a stark contrast from the Trump cheerleading often displayed by the network’s prime-time and morning-show commentators.
Mr. Smith, a nonpartisan news anchor, was often accused by Mr. Trump of a liberal bias. Mr. Smith’s reporting on the White House has frustrated Mr. Trump, who has taunted the anchor on Twitter. On Thursday, Mr. Trump cited Mr. Smith by name, along the former Democratic strategist Donna Brazile, in a Twitter post arguing that Fox News was “much different than it used to be in the good old days.”
This is a developing story. It will be updated. The tension between Mr. Smith and some of his Fox News colleagues had recently burst into open view. Mr. Smith denounced a guest on Tucker Carlson’s program for making “repugnant” comments about a Fox News legal analyst, Andrew Napolitano. Mr. Carlson fired back at Mr. Smith with a not-so-subtle suggestion of bias, saying, “Unlike maybe some dayside hosts, I’m not very partisan.”
[Read about on-air sniping at Fox News.]
Several of his Fox News colleagues appeared shocked by Mr. Smith’s decision to depart. “I’m a little stunned and a little heartbroken,” the anchor Neil Cavuto, who follows Mr. Smith on weekdays, told viewers moments after Mr. Smith had concluded his broadcast. It appeared that Mr. Cavuto had no advance warning of Mr. Smith’s decision.
John Roberts, Fox News’s chief White House correspondent, called the move “completely shocking” and compared learning of the news to being “hit by a subway train.”