An anchorman with attitude

greenspun.com : LUSENET : Current News - Homefront Preparations : One Thread

* Fox News Channel's Shepard Smith hasn't let an on-air gaffe put a dent in his career arc.

By Elizabeth Jensen, Times Staff Writer

NEW YORK -- Shepard Smith, the news anchor with the fastest Mississippi drawl on television, has been a rising star in cable news this year: The Fox News Channel personality has the top-rated newscast (as opposed to talk show), and in October and November his "Fox Report" passed CNN's Larry King to take the No. 3 spot overall. He's ahead so far this month too.

But there's always room for more viewers. So when Smith tripped over his tongue on a newscast the day before election day and blurted out a vulgar phrase for a sex act in a report about singer Jennifer Lopez possibly returning to her old neighborhood for a block party, the PR team saw its opening. As links to recordings of the mistake became a staple online, keeping the incident fresh in people's minds for weeks, the gaffe became part of the pitch to reporters on why they should write about the anchor.

Perhaps because Fox was so quick to exploit the situation, many industry rivals are convinced the flub was a deliberate play for attention. Smith insists that it was a mistake, one that happened because he hadn't read the news copy in advance of delivering it on the air. The incident, which drew thousands of e-mails, was "really awful," he says. "I would never do anything like that on television intentionally."

He left the New York studio that day and called his boss to apologize, then canceled a dinner and went home to look at the e-mails, trying to figure out if his career was over (in the end, just 3% of the mail was negative, he says). "I was real embarrassed. We do a lot of joking on our show, but our show can't become a joke."

Smith, 38, more often earns high marks for being an almost perfect match to his renegade employer. He anchors a noon hour, but it's the 4 p.m. "Fox Report" that is his focus. It's a newscast with attitude (although he chafes at a recent description of him as "cocky," saying that the phrase applies to Fox, but not him). "Fox Report" is a fast-paced hour that first looks seriously at the serious stories of the day, then wraps up with features like "Around the World in 80 Seconds" and the "G Block" of entertainment and sports briefs.

The program draws 1.4 million viewers on average per night, according to Nielsen ratings to date for the fourth quarter, and is particularly popular with young men, with whom it ranks second in cable news to Fox's "The O'Reilly Factor," which immediately follows it. Fox is trying to translate his popularity to its broadcast network, where Smith will again anchor the newsmagazine "The Pulse," when the summer program returns in January with a new studio, new music and new format, he says.

One rival sneers that Smith's program is merely " 'Headline News' with an editorializing quip"; Smith says he wants his newscast, which will also move to a new studio in March, to move even faster than it already does. "If you can tell a story in 10, 12, 15 seconds, then move on," he says. "If [viewers] want in-depth 40 column inches on something, I can tell them where to go." He describes what he does on the program as getting to "shoot it out of a cannon; it's automatic-weapon television. We're not going to waste your time."

Smith was raised in a much slower environment, the population-7,000 town of Holly Springs, Miss., which he likes to say had no McDonald's or movie theater. He knew he wanted to be on television when he saw a live report in 1977 on the death of Elvis Presley and was impressed with the immediacy. He started out at the tiny Panama City, Fla., NBC station, where he had to do it all: "Shoot, edit, write, produce and set up the truck." (His favorite stories are still about "little old ladies and the roofers. You track down the roofer and get the money back and get someone thrown in jail.")

Stints in Fort Myers, Fla., and Orlando led him to a street reporter's job at WSVN in Miami, a Fox station that gained national attention for its seven hours a day of news, delivered in a fast-paced graphic style augmented by slow motion and dramatic music. "You learned to take a lot of information and get a story on quickly," Smith says. The style was criticized by many, he concedes. "They would bash you and bash you and bash you -- and then copy you. A little bit like Fox."

Smith joined the syndicated "A Current Affair" in its last months, moved to reporting for Fox's affiliate stations in 1996 and then came to Fox News Channel, where he got his first anchoring job. He says his approach is to call it as it is: "If it's crazy and outlandish, treat it that way. If it's serious and important, treat it that way. There's no reason news has to be delivered in a monotone."

And he has choice words for the "NewsHour with Jim Lehrer" folks who cited his tendency to speak in phrases without verbs: "Shut uuup. When we mess up the facts, call me. We're not going to do it the boring way."

-- Anonymous, December 13, 2002


Moderation questions? read the FAQ