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Shepard Smith, one of Fox News’s leading anchors and a frequent target of President Trump, abruptly stepped down from the network on Friday, departing with little explanation after 23 years on the air.
Smith, Fox News’s chief news anchor and host of its afternoon news program “Shepard Smith Reporting,” said the decision to leave was his own but gave no further reason for his resignation. He signed off with a brief statement, surprising even his colleagues. Fox News said Friday’s program would be Smith’s last.
Smith has been at Fox News since its founding in 1996 and is one of its signature figures. He was among the first people hired by Fox News’s co-founder, the late Roger Ailes, for the network’s launch. His recent tenure, however, has been marked by conflict and criticism, not just from President Trump but from within the network itself.
...
In farewell remarks, Smith said, “Recently I asked the company to allow me to leave Fox News and begin a new chapter. After requesting that I stay, they graciously obliged. The opportunities afforded this guy from small-town Mississippi have been many. It’s been an honor and a privilege to report the news each day to our loyal audience in context and with perspective, without fear or favor.”
...
Smith’s criticism of Trump dates to the beginning of Trump’s presidency. After a presidential news conference in early 2017, for example, he called some of Trump’s responses “absolutely crazy.” He went on to defend rival news network CNN after Trump called its reporting “fake news.”
“CNN’s reporting was not fake news,” Smith said at the time. “Its journalists follow the same standards to which other news organizations, including Fox News, adhere.”
More recently, he urged Fox News viewers to read special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s report of his investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election, strongly suggesting that it didn’t exonerate the president, as Trump and Attorney General William P. Barr had claimed. “Everyone in America should read” it, he said on the air. “Everyone.”
Trump, in turn, has sometimes disparaged Smith by name on Twitter, viewing him as an apostate at a network he believes should be loyal to him.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/life...7953b8-ec61-11e9-85c0-85a098e47b37_story.html
Smith, Fox News’s chief news anchor and host of its afternoon news program “Shepard Smith Reporting,” said the decision to leave was his own but gave no further reason for his resignation. He signed off with a brief statement, surprising even his colleagues. Fox News said Friday’s program would be Smith’s last.
Smith has been at Fox News since its founding in 1996 and is one of its signature figures. He was among the first people hired by Fox News’s co-founder, the late Roger Ailes, for the network’s launch. His recent tenure, however, has been marked by conflict and criticism, not just from President Trump but from within the network itself.
...
In farewell remarks, Smith said, “Recently I asked the company to allow me to leave Fox News and begin a new chapter. After requesting that I stay, they graciously obliged. The opportunities afforded this guy from small-town Mississippi have been many. It’s been an honor and a privilege to report the news each day to our loyal audience in context and with perspective, without fear or favor.”
...
Smith’s criticism of Trump dates to the beginning of Trump’s presidency. After a presidential news conference in early 2017, for example, he called some of Trump’s responses “absolutely crazy.” He went on to defend rival news network CNN after Trump called its reporting “fake news.”
“CNN’s reporting was not fake news,” Smith said at the time. “Its journalists follow the same standards to which other news organizations, including Fox News, adhere.”
More recently, he urged Fox News viewers to read special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s report of his investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election, strongly suggesting that it didn’t exonerate the president, as Trump and Attorney General William P. Barr had claimed. “Everyone in America should read” it, he said on the air. “Everyone.”
Trump, in turn, has sometimes disparaged Smith by name on Twitter, viewing him as an apostate at a network he believes should be loyal to him.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/life...7953b8-ec61-11e9-85c0-85a098e47b37_story.html



