NEW YORK — The Twitter stream on a producer’s computer a few feet from where Fox News Channel’s Shepard Smith anchored his newscast several days ago steadily churned out invective. You’re a liberal, Shep. You belong on MSNBC. President Trump doesn’t watch your show.
Those are the printable messages, and illustrate the island he often finds himself upon.
Fox is the network of choice for an overwhelming majority of Trump supporters and Smith’s afternoon newscast is the place where they are most likely to encounter things they might not want to hear. In the past week, he pointed out that facts don’t support the president’s claim of widespread voter fraud. He said he doesn’t know upon what Trump bases his belief that torture works as an interrogation tactic, and said the new immigration policy is a jihadist’s dream. “We know because they’ve said so for years,” he said.
And Trump’s claim that the media is the administration’s opposition party? Smith calls it preposterous.
“We’re the Fourth Estate,” he said in an interview. “We work for the people. It’s our job to find out what’s happening, to provide context and perspective and give them information that’s fair and truthful and as perfect as we can make it. The suggestion that we’re the opposition party is not worthy of a reply.”
‘New territory’
It’s his job to point it out if it’s clear the president is not telling the truth, he said.
“This is new territory for us,” he said. “People who are partisan will say, ‘(Obama) said you can keep your doctor and you couldn’t.’ This isn’t the same thing. This is a demonstrable, of-the-moment utterance. When it’s demonstrably false at the moment of utterance, it’s not really difficult to figure out what to do next. This dynamic of the president not telling the truth in a public forum, it’s new to me.”
Smith’s show airs seven hours before Sean Hannity, who has continued his Trump advocacy while sharpening his attacks on media outlets that question the president. In an interview with Politico released this week, Hannity said The New York Times, CNN and MSNBC “will never get their credibility back” if they have people on the air who call Trump a liar.
While he may not use the l-word, Smith said it has never been more important to have people whose job it is to find out what’s happening and get it right.
“People who are not appreciating that right now — and I understand that nerves are raw — there will come a time when they appreciate that,” he said.
The 53-year-old anchor is a lifer at Fox News, which this month marks 15 years as the most-watched cable news network. His boss, Fox News executive vice president for news and editorial Jay Wallace, praises Smith’s ability to take command of a big story and explain it to viewers without talking down to them.
Fox executives have always taken pains to contrast its news programs from opinion, and Smith’s work has always been one of the most frequently cited examples of the former. Wallace said that when the time comes to challenge people, Fox will.
Fox has avoided the sharp downturn in viewership that news networks typically face after an election. Smith’s ratings fall in the midrange among daytime Fox hosts, and, like most Fox News shows, have higher viewership than shows on MSNBC and CNN in the same time slot.
“We know that that sort of thing seems to score,” Smith said.
