Shepard Smith, Fox News Anchor, Abruptly Departs From Network – The New York Times

Carl Cameron, a Fox News reporter who left the network in 2017 and has since become an outspoken critic, said he was “not the least bit surprised” by Mr. Smith’s decision.

“He’s a warrior and he stayed in the war longer than anybody should have,” Mr. Cameron said in an interview on Friday. “We both would reassure ourselves that authentic, factual news was a way to distinguish ourselves in what was becoming an increasingly more and more partisan network.”

“God help the journalists at Fox hang in there, because they’re doing the right thing,” Mr. Cameron added.

With Mr. Smith’s exit, Fox’s news coverage will be led by other star nonpartisan anchors, including Bret Baier, the “Fox News Sunday” moderator Chris Wallace and Martha MacCallum. At a recent panel discussion in New York with advertisers, Ms. MacCallum defended the network’s journalism, saying pointedly of Mr. Trump, “Contrary to the opinion of some people, he’s not our boss.”

Fox News released a poll this week that showed a majority of respondents in favor of Mr. Trump being impeached, prompting a presidential rebuke. On Twitter, Mr. Trump lamented that Fox News was “much different than it used to be in the good old days,” citing by name Mr. Smith and the former Democratic strategist Donna Brazile, now a paid Fox News analyst.

In March, the president lobbed another insult at Mr. Smith, saying that, along with a pair of Fox News weekend anchors, he should be working at CNN, a network the president often accuses of having a liberal bias.