CNN guest: Fox's remaining dayside shows “look like news shows but they’re stacked with people who replicate the talking points of the White House”
The Baltimore Sun's David Zurawik tells Brian Stelter that Shep Smith resigning is a “severe blow” to Fox News' credibility
Published
Citation From the October 13 edition of CNN's Reliable Sources
BRIAN STELTER (HOST): President Trump criticized Shep. He would tweet against Shep. The president seems always to promote the opinion shows on Fox and attack the news division. For example, he attacked that Fox poll this week that showed impeachment getting a majority support among Americans. So David, your reaction?
DAVID ZURAWIK (BALTIMORE SUN MEDIA CRITIC): Well, one of the things is, you know, with Trump doing that, it really can wear you down. I mean, some of your reporting, you talked about him, about Shep just wanting to move on. Maybe being tired of this. You know, I heard some of that from Megyn Kelly when Trump went after her on social media. She was a star at Fox at that time, and then of course left. It creates -- it takes any sense of joy out of the business. When you have that -- it's not just the president. The president is driving many in the Fox base to be after you constantly on social media --
STELTER: Yes.
ZURAWIK: -- and that's really psychologically a problem. And you know I don't blame Shep one bit for walking away from this if he can, you know, and obviously he can afford to do it with the contracts he's had the last few years --
STELTER: $15 million. Yeah, yeah..
ZURAWIK: But really, that's one of the ways Fox management getting into bed with Trump hurts the network long term. This is a severe blow to its credibility when you lose Shep. And I'll tell you something else, we haven't -- that hasn't been much discussed is it was -- Fox likes to say, oh, during the day it's all news, at night it's opinion, blah, blah, blah. It isn't all news during the day. A lot of those shows, those news shows, look like news shows, but they're stacked with people who replicate the talking points of the White House or right-wing point of view. He didn't do that. Maybe it was because he was a managing editor, but his show didn't have right-wingers on it giving talking points. And if they did, he went after them. That’s another huge loss I think to Fox on this.