Perhaps the defining moment of Shepard Smith’s lengthy career was Sept. 2, 2005, during one of the most horrific moments in American history post-9/11. Smith was out of the studio reporting live from New Orleans and the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and appearing on Sean Hannity’s highly rated prime-time show, then co-hosted by Alan Colmes. It doesn’t take long listening to Smith to know he has a personal connection to the South — he’s from Mississippi — and his reporting that evening lent a personal touch. “Over there, there’s hope; over there, there’s electricity,” Smith said, refering to the adjacent city of Gretna, which had been blocked off by a government checkpoint. Hannity interrupted and asked for some perspective. “That is perspective! That is all the perspective you need,” Smith said.
It was a powerful scene. The Associated Press compared Smith to “a youthful Dan Rather [who] made a name for himself with stellar coverage of a Gulf Coast hurricane two generations ago.”
But the moment was also notable for the duality it represented, one that continues to this day. Hannity almost instinctively pushed back on what could be considered criticism of Republican President George W. Bush, but Smith held firm in his reporting. It was the news vs. opinion divide that has always existed at Fox News, with the two sides clashing as they rarely do on live TV.
Smith joined Fox News at its inception back in 1996. He was one of the few original members remaining when he abruptly announced earlier this month he was leaving Fox News, ending his 23-year career at the network effective immediately. The 55-year-old Smith will now sit out a noncompete agreement of unknown length, although it would be shocking if we don’t see the accomplished anchor somewhere in the near future.
The story of Smith and Fox was always an intriguing one. At Fox News, opinion often reigns supreme, but perhaps no other individual (besides Megyn Kelly) rose to his level of stardom while maintaining a foothold on the news side of the divide. At one point, he hosted both the 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. hours on the network, although in 2013 Fox reduced his role to the afternoon slot. As is the norm for Fox News programs, his was consistently the highest rated cable news show at his hour, in both total viewers and the 25-to-54-year-old demographic.
Smith’s departure, at least from the outside, speaks to what journalism is like in our era. Some on Fox News in prime time, such as Sean Hannity and Lou Dobbs, have become practically sycophantic Trump supporters, other hosts at supposedly objective cable news networks such as CNN have become equally anti-Trump.
Smith typically remained above the fray. “He gave them a certain amount of credibility,” one longtime TV news executive told me. “Now there’s one fewer voice of reason on that network.”
While Smith didn’t swing toward Trump support, he wasn’t alone at Fox News either. Bill Hemmer, John Roberts, and Jennifer Griffin have had notable moments recently, pushing back against Trump administration officials or talking points. But we no longer live in an era where down-the-middle objectivity earns someone credibility among many in the media. Since Smith’s departure, Chris Wallace was dubbed by Bloomberg (in a since-changed headline) as “the new face of the Trump Resistance at Fox News,” as if resistance is the goal for journalists these days. Wallace is neither part of the #Resistance nor walking around with a “MAGA” hat on, which mirrors Smith’s former role at the network.
Most notable about Smith was his pre-Trump role. Perhaps no major part of Fox News exhibited the “Fair and Balanced” ethos on a regular basis better than Smith. In fact, he once apologized on-air for a particularly non-“balanced” moment.
Smith served as something of a counterballast to the partisan opinion hosts Fox News has become more known. He’d even been known to debunk segments and narratives given from Fox opinion hosts. Naturally, this saw him occasionally clashing with colleagues. Last year, it was a back-and-forth with Hannity, while just last month, it was with Tucker Carlson. These spats weren’t typical or even that serious. But with them, Smith came to represent the news vs. opinion divide at Fox that was previously kept at bay by the network’s founder, Roger Ailes, and that has widened with the Trump presidency.
That credibility is what kept Smith at the forefront of Fox News for so long, largely due to the respect he garnered from Ailes. Without Ailes’ #MeToo-fueled departure, it’s a real question as to whether Smith would still be anchoring today. The respect was mutual. “Roger Ailes was a patriot. He was the biggest personality and most influential and powerful man I’d ever personally encountered,” Smith said in an on-air tribute to Ailes after he died in 2017. “He guided me and supported me and protected me and told me he loved me like a father. And I loved him.” (The whole thing is really worth a watch.)
Inside that tribute was another element that makes Smith’s story unique, though decreasingly: He talked on-air about his sexual orientation. Although a fixture on Out magazine’s “Out 100,” Smith had never publicly discussed his sexual orientation until just a week before his tribute to Ailes, when he talked about growing up gay, during a speech at his alma mater. He went into further detail in a Time profile last year. “I have a longtime boyfriend and we’re as happy as we can be and we live a very normal life and go to dinner and go to games and see his family and see my family. It’s great for us,” he said, before, in characteristic Smith fashion, closing with: “But I can’t imagine anyone else finding it interesting.”
Smith’s legacy at Fox News will not be as part of any political resistance. He didn’t have time for that. What will be remembered most is likely to be his style of tempering serious journalism with a winking lightness about the whole thing, a knowing acknowledgment that most of the time, this cable news thing is really not that serious after all. He could be funny, even absolutely hilarious at times, such as when he couldn’t contain his curious excitement at interviewing Glenn Beck while Beck was live from the “Doom Room.”
Times change, of course. You could make the argument that Smith helped popularize the exhilarating car chase. He’d drop into a local news station’s helicopter coverage of some stolen vehicle speeding down a highway, usually in California or Florida, and narrate it as only he could. He did it for years, even once for a wild llama chase, and his style was often copied but never duplicated. That is, until, in 2012, when a car chase ended in an on-air suicide. Suddenly, it just wasn’t fun anymore.
Maybe that’s what happened with his departure from Fox News. Smith didn’t change. He didn’t become part of the #Resistance. But Trump happened, and the media changed. And it just wasn’t much fun anymore.
Fox News will be fine, both its opinion and news side. But the media will be better off when Smith is back on the air.
Steve Krakauer spent 10 years as a journalist and media executive, including at CNN and TheBlaze. He now resides in Dallas, Texas, and writes on the intersection of media, culture, and technology.
