A Shepard Smith gave a very interesting interview to Christiane Amanpour the other day. Shepard
Smith, former Fox News anchor for a long time, was like the sole voice of reason on Fox News.
And when he was there, we wondered, does CHEP understand what he's doing? Does he understand the
context of crazy in which he is offering something that looks more like the news on Fox News Channel?
And this interview he gave to Christiane Amanpour is fascinating. And it confirms that Shep Smith
was very much aware of what he was doing there. And he said that a lot of his presence
on Fox News was specifically to serve as a counterpoint to the wackiness of what we were
seeing on Fox News. He called it injurious to society, what was happening there. And,
you know, this plays into our discussion about the future of right wing media in the Trump era.
Smith says in this interview that the falsehoods from his colleagues on Fox News eventually became
too much to bear, but that his point was to inject reality. Take a look at this.
I thought it was important that I stay there because I knew that I was grounded in that
philosophy and and working toward that promise. And if you feel like the Fox viewers were.
Getting myths or disinformation, I was there to make sure that they got it straight, there were
a lot of others in there who were trying to do the same thing. But I thought to just abandon it
and to deprive those viewers of it wasn't just me. I mean, there's an entire team of people getting
the news to the air to to deny them that with the thought that they might replace it with opinion
instead seemed a little selfish. This is actually very interesting
staying at Fox News, because if you leave, they replace you with someone worse.
We applied that same thought to the Trump administration in many cases. We said,
you know, Foushee clearly is disgusted with what's going on, but if he quits and they replace him
with someone, even worse, is the country better off or worse off? And that's the exact analysis
that QEP says he was doing when at FOX News. Christiane Amanpour then asks whether Shep
Smith accepts that Fox perpetuates division and perpetuates lies.
And Shep gives a very interesting answer. I want to play the entire thing for you.
And I don't know, you know, you can be proud of what you did,
but I wonder whether you also feel now that CNBC, you see how a whole different ecosystem works,
whether you accept that Fox News in the opinion sphere and, you know, in other Rupert Murdoch
enterprises, you know, perpetuated so many of the divisions, the lies, the conspiracies,
the support. Look at Sean Hannity going up and, you know,
doing campaign rallies for President Trump. So blurring the lines is to be the propaganda arm
of the Republican Party. I just wonder what you think about that now.
Well, I feel the same way about that now that I did then,
and my goal was to just keep the blinders on and do my job to the best of my ability.
And was I I am always concerned when people want to opine all you like.
But if you're going to opine, begin with the truth and opine from there. And it's that that deviation
from that that has has caused me the greatest concern. And I and I believe that when people
begin with a false premise and lead people astray, that's injurious to society. And it's
and it's the antithesis of what we should be doing. Those of us who are so honored and
and grateful to have a platform of influence, who have to use it for for the public good. And and I
slept very well. I don't know how some people sleep at night because I know that there are
a lot of people who who have propagated the lies and have pushed them forward over and over again,
who are smart enough and educated enough to know better. And I hope that at some point, those who
have done us harm as a nation, and I might even add as a world, will look around and realize what
they've done, but I'm not holding my breath. So that's a really interesting interview.
And from the outside, we didn't know what Szeps perception was of what he was doing.
And some say Shep was still bad because he was on a network generating them profits,
which were then funneled into continuing the disinformation. And I sympathize with that. Shep
was a cog in the wheel, and you could even make the case that Shep provided cover to Fox News.
You could say, Shep, being there one hour a day, five days a week, provided cover to Fox
to say, no, no, no. We have all sorts of different perspectives. But the reality is,
you know, Fox would exist either way. And if you want to say, are we better off with Fox having
one hour of Shep Smith versus zero or replacing Shep with someone worse?
Yeah, you know, I mean, Shep knew what Fox was every time he was cashing the checks.
And I don't know what that means. If Shep's goal was to provide a counter narrative, which he did,
he could have left earlier and gotten the same paycheck elsewhere. And in fact,
now he's getting the paycheck at CNBC. It's not that clear to me that Shep did something wrong by
staying when he was providing a counterpoint. Now, another perspective is he should be credited for
remaining true to his role, despite so many people around him at Fox News selling themselves out,
and that his responsibility was to stay as long as possible and for for as long as Fox
would allow him to stay and not fire him, which they ultimately didn't. Ultimately, he quit,
although maybe he was pressured. We don't know he's doing a good thing.
And I can sympathize with different perspectives on this. But I think much like
with the Foushee example, if Foushee quit when Trump talked about injecting bleach and
started attacking Foushee publicly, if Foushee quits, then he's replaced with someone that is
probably going to do far more damage and probably lead to even more deaths than we've already seen
during the coronavirus pandemic. So Falchi stayed and it was probably the right thing to do much the
same way. I think on balance, we are better off that Shepp stayed longer rather than leaving and
being replaced with, you know, imagine if Shepp leaves a year and a half ago or whatever it was,
and they replaced him with Maria Bartiromo. The country's worse off, there's no question about it.
So I'm curious to hear your thoughts on that. You can find me on Twitter at David Pakman.
And we have a fantastic Friday show planned for you today,