For those who don’t pay attention to personnel changes, Shep Smith was a Fox News anchor since the beginning until he abruptly quit in 2019. He hadn’t discussed his reasons for leaving Fox News until he talked to CNN/Business yesterday:
Smith, now host of the nightly show “The News with Shepard Smith” at 7 pm ET on CNBC, told Amanpour that his presence on Fox became untenable as opinion shows on the network spread falsehoods that hosts knew were lies.
“Opine all you like, but if you’re going to opine, begin with the truth and opine from there,” Smith said. “When people begin with a false premise and lead people astray, that’s injurious to society and it’s the antithesis of what we should be doing: Those of us who are so honored and grateful to have a platform of public influence have to use it for the public good.”
Sure, it’s unsurprising, given all the study of Fox News that has occurred, but it’s still good to have a former insider to actually point the finger and admit the truth. The one problem is that since CNN has been pronounced anathema to the conservative viewer, few if any Fox New viewers will hear what he has to say – and he has a lovely conclusion:
“I don’t know how some people sleep at night,” Smith said of the Fox News employees who knowingly spread falsehoods. “I know that there are a lot of people who have propagated the lies and who have pushed them forward over and over again who are smart enough and educated enough to know better.”
Prestige, wealth, social pressure, even rejection of facts: the faces of evil are many.
