Fox News anchor Shepard Smith, who heads the network’s 3 p.m. newscast, said he just signed a new multi-year contract because he worried about what type of programming Fox News would put in his place if he were to leave.
“To stop doing it would be bad because I think that there is a need for it, and I know the degree to which we care about it and focus on it and we want it to be as perfect as it can be,” he said in an interview with Time magazine published Thursday. “And I wonder, if I stopped delivering the facts, what would go in its place in this place that is most watched, most listened, most viewed, most trusted? I don’t know.”
Smith said in the interview that many Fox News viewers and news consumers in general increasingly want news that confirms their political biases, but said he works to create a “high and thick” wall between his show and Fox’s opinion programming.
“Are you looking for news and information so that you can make decisions about your life and your family?” he said. “Or are you looking for your worldview to be confirmed? For that second kind of viewer, when the facts fly in the face of your worldview, that can be unsettling. Sometimes, then, they don’t like me. And there are other times when the facts work beautifully with their worldview. Then, they’re very happy.”
The network announced his new contract Thursday. A spokeswoman for Fox News would not specify how many years the contract states.
