Paul Farhi reports for the Washington Post
Shepard Smith, one of Fox News’ leading anchors and a frequent critic of President Trump, will step down from the network, effective immediately, the network announced Friday.
Smith, Fox’s chief news anchor and anchor of its afternoon news program, “Shepard Smith Reporting,” said the decision to leave was his own, but gave no further reason for stepping down. He announced his resignation on the air on his Friday program, which Fox said would be his last.
Smith has been at Fox News since its founding 23 years ago, and was one of the first people hired for its launch in 1996.
In a statement, 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 has often incurred the wrath of loyal Fox viewers by his skeptical reporting and commentary on President Trump. After a presidential press conference in early 2017, for example, he called some of Trump’s responses “absolutely crazy.” He went on to defend CNN, Fox’s rival news network, when 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.”
Smith even had the stature to take on his own network’s conservative commentators. After one suggested in early 2017 that British agents had been recruited by President Obama to bug Trump Tower during the 2016 campaign, Smith set the record straight: “Fox News knows of no evidence of any kind that the now-president of the United States was surveilled at any time, in any way. Full stop.”
Trump, in turn, has occasionally disparaged Smith on Twitter.
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