Shep Smith announced on his show this afternoon that he is leaving Fox News. And that was it. With no fanfare, Friday was his last day.
CNN’s Brian Stelter knows why he left — he says. A well-placed source told him the reasons he left — the opinion hosts and Donald Trump.
Last month, Shep Smith decided that he had simply had enough due to the pro-Trump opinion hosts, according to Stelter.
The news took his co-workers Neil Cavuto and Bret Baier and others by surprise. A number of people were shocked and saddened by his departure. The Trump hater had a lot of supporters at Fox News.
Stelter says Smith’s distress was because a huge chunk of Fox is aligned with President Trump and his alleged distortions of the truth. Smith thought he was getting the truth out to counteract their alleged lies.
“I wonder,” he told a Time magazine reporter last year, “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.”
Shep Smith is delusional if he thinks he was delivering facts. His Trump hatred blinded him to facts and real reporting. He was very biased.
According to Stelter, Shep went to Fox management and asked to be let out of his contract. He couldn’t stand the tension with the opinion shows, he said, as Stelter puts it.
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Last month, he had a very public twitter dispute with Tucker Carlson after Shep and Judge Napolitano claimed the President definitely committed crimes by talking with the Ukraine President. That has turned out to be wrong. The transcript proved otherwise.
Tucker called him out at the time and Smith expressed his fury on air.
The executives allegedly wanted Smith to stay but he was done.
On Friday afternoon he announced his departure on the air, then exited the building immediately, clearly emotional about saying goodbye to his television home of twenty-three years.
“Our leader walked,” a Fox correspondent said on condition of anonymity. “This place is devoid of clear leadership.”
Oh great, he was the leader and a role model. Sad that staffers at CNN would think of him as the leader.
Stelter’s writing a book and claims to have spoken with frustrated staffers who find it challenging to cover the news inside a network “defined by sycophantic pro-Trump personalities like Sean Hannity.”
That’s from a serious sycophant. Who can forget how Stelter lavished praise on Michael Avenatti, telling him he was a viable presidential candidate.
Shep wasn’t happy on and off-air, Stelter said.
That makes a lot of us. Fox viewers, for the most part, couldn’t stand him.
His allies said it got to be too much for him.
Stelter mentioned other Fox reporters and personalities who left including Carl Cameron. Cameron, as it turns out, is progressive and has set up a far-left version of Drudge to get the socialist news out.
Smith made $15 million a year and was supposed to be the managing editor, handling the breaking news. He found himself marginalized more and more in the age of Trump, Stelter said.
Perhaps he was marginalized because he was awful.
Stelter is trying to create a glorious image around Shep. He allegedly quoted a former colleague saying it wasn’t “about the money anymore. It’s about saying he’s holding down the mantle of journalism.”
Another source challenged the suggestion that Smith ever cared primarily about the paycheck: “It’s never been about the money for Shep. It’s about the truth.”
That’s all laughable. He may think it’s the case, but it’s not.
Shep’s show was the lowest-rated in the Fox lineup because he was awful.
Maybe Shep will find himself on one of the many unfriendly Trump networks.
To his credit, he left gracefully.
Fox News will rotate anchors in Shep’s place in the short term.
President Trump thinks Smith left due to poor ratings.
Trump on Shep Smith leaving Fox News: “I assume it was because of bad ratings.” pic.twitter.com/7itL9OIQt5
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) October 11, 2019
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