Shep Smith responds to right-wing critics: ‘I do belong here’ at Fox News.
Shep Smith responds to right-wing critics: ‘I do belong here’ at Fox News.
On June 10, Fox News anchor Shep Smith made headlines with his response to the shooting by a white supremacist at the Holocaust Memorial Museum. He said the incident showed that the much-maligned DHS report on violent, right-wing extremists was a “warning to us all,” even though “the right went absolutely bonkers” in response to it. The right quickly went after him, calling for his resignation from Fox News. In a new interview with the New York Times, Smith responds:
“When a crazy man has walked into a Holocaust museum and shot the security guard, maybe that’s an appropriate time to warn people: you’ve got a crazy person in your life, keep an eye on him,” he said in an interview in his Manhattan office last week.
Mr. Smith said he fully anticipated one result of those comments: the nasty e-mail increased.
“Thousands of them,” Mr. Smith said. “And I know they don’t mean the things they say. I know they don’t hate me and want death on my family.”
What they mostly say, he explained, is: “You don’t belong there.” Mr. Smith paused a moment before adding: “I do belong here.”
Smith said that his colleagues, such as Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck, are “fascinating, terrific entertainer,” but that he tries to provide the “news” in Fox News.
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FOX “News” should have been fined and subsequently banned years ago for false advertising …….
June 22nd, 2009 at 11:03 am“Thousands of them,” Mr. Smith said. “And I know they don’t mean the things they say. I know they don’t hate me and want death on my family.”
It only takes ONE of them, encouraged by the rhetoric of the THOUSANDS of them and you will be proven incorrect.
June 22nd, 2009 at 11:07 ami think i finally figured it out…
if you work in journalism but don’t have any sort of college degree, then you are an entertainer in the eyes of the right
sean hannity- no college degree
glenn beck- no college degree
rush limbaugh- no college degree
(upon writing this i looked it up and apparently shep. never actually finished his degree at the University of Mississippi, but he was only a few credits shy of graduation, which gives him more of a college education then the other 3 combined)
no, there’s no problem with not having a college degree
yes, there is a problem if you don’t have a degree and maintain to be a journalist and try to tell people what to believe.
if you don’t have a quality education you should step away from the mic and read a book.
June 22nd, 2009 at 11:09 amGood for Shep Smith for providing some common sense at Fox News.
June 22nd, 2009 at 11:15 amI always liked him and felt sorry for Alan Colmes who wasn’t allowed to be aggressive enough.
He is practically the only voice of reason there…
June 22nd, 2009 at 11:17 am“And I know they don’t mean the things they say. I know they don’t hate me and want death on my family.”
Ummm…actually, Mr. Smith, some of them do mean the things they say — just ask the families of Dr. Tiller and Mr. Johns, the security guard at the Holocaust Museum, not to mention any of the families whose loved ones were killed by Timothy McVeigh and his fellow right-wing radicals.
They most certainly do mean what they say, Mr. Smith — and this seething hatred lying close to the surface of the right wing right now is what’s giving us more to fear from domesti terrorists right now than from foreign terrorists…
June 22nd, 2009 at 11:18 amShep., you’re wrong about one thing….they do hate you and they do want the death of your family.
June 22nd, 2009 at 11:19 amcalavzma Says:
if you don’t have a quality education you should step away from the mic and read a book.
The problem with this suggestion is that people like Beck have stepped away from the microphone to read a book. The problem comes from the fact that reading that book isn’t followed by thought-provoking conversation with experts in the field. There’s only so much you can get from reading a book–it is the discussion about the subject matter and subsequent readings from related material that can truly count as “education”.
In other words, don’t just read a book and treat its word as bond–read a book and discuss it, reinforce it, work it into your life in some way.
That being said, I appreciate that Shep at least gets vocal about his opposition. If he didn’t speak up every now and then at Fox, who would?
June 22nd, 2009 at 11:19 amHope the money makes it worthwhile to spend your days talking to paranoid lunatics Shep. I would also use some of that money to hire a good security team.
June 22nd, 2009 at 11:22 amIt’s good that Shep Smith has mentioned the hateful emails. I hope he’s increased his security.
Shep needs to let Beck, Hannity and O’Reilly know that they need to quit fanning the flames of hatred. Their hateful spew is fueling the wingnut fringe and Fox ought to be held partially responsible.
June 22nd, 2009 at 11:23 amlarkohio Says:
He is practically the only voice of reason there…
Yep; besides Geraldo, Colmes and Alexis Glick, there ‘ain’t a whole lot of reason left there.
June 22nd, 2009 at 11:24 amcalavzma, I hear what you’re saying, but I don’t necessarily think a college degree is evidence that one is a journalist.
Journalism is much more of a trade than, say, psychology or accounting. One can become a quality journalist without a degree, as long as he has an innate curiosity, commitment to the truth and a sense of telling a story.
Unfortunately, the three gentlemen you named all lack the first two qualities. Especially the second.
June 22nd, 2009 at 11:25 amIf he wants to do news, he should quit Fox and go work for a news channel
June 22nd, 2009 at 11:26 amSean Hannity and Glenn Beck, are “fascinating, terrific entertainer,”
I beg to differ.
June 22nd, 2009 at 11:30 amI think Mr. Smith’s presence at Fox is a positive. As long as that network is here to stay, it behooves all for it to become a legitimate source of informing, rather than an RNC megaphone.
Maybe he considers it his calling — like so many who work under rather distasteful conditions for the betterment of others.
Let’s support him raising the Fox bar; goodness knows he’s got plenty of co-workers trying to keep that bar at ankle height.
June 22nd, 2009 at 11:32 amWhy should you leftest care anyways? You can get all your propaganda from the other news networks anyways.
June 22nd, 2009 at 11:35 am“And I know they don’t mean the things they say. I know they don’t hate me and want death on my family.”
I hate to tell you this Shep, but they probably do mean the things they say. I would watch my back if I were you.
June 22nd, 2009 at 11:38 amFox keeps Shep Smith around for the same reason people put a rose in the outhouse. It’s to make the dungheap smell better. unfortunately, in either case, it doesn’t work. Fox, the outhouse of cable news, still stinks.
June 22nd, 2009 at 11:38 amShepard Smith is Faux News “Token” normal person.
June 22nd, 2009 at 11:38 amUh oh.
June 22nd, 2009 at 11:41 amA poster is being ignored on the other threads, so it comes here to post nonsense.
Sad.
Kudos to Shep for trying to breath a little reality once in a while into the nonsense that is that network’s programming and their corporate water-carrying agenda.
June 22nd, 2009 at 11:42 amjust keep ignoring them. It bugs the crap out of them…
June 22nd, 2009 at 11:44 amRealityCheck Says:
Why should you leftest care anyways? You can get all your propaganda from the other news networks anyways.
I think you mean “leftists.” There are more than one of us, so the S is needed on the end to make it plural. And it’s “ist” not “est,” which is a superlative form of the adjective left, not the noun version of leftist, or person who leans left politically. I don’t think you were paying attention in grammar or spelling class.
June 22nd, 2009 at 11:45 amThat said, it is really too funny that you think the other news networks are propagandistic. No network is worse than Faux News for presenting cut versions of Obama’s speeches that are edited to incorrectly present his positions and make him look bad as a result. No other network is as critical of Obama than Faux. And no other network sucked up more to Bush-Cheney than Faux, whose head, Roger Ailes, is a former GOP political operative, NOT a former news journalist. Faux is our very own U.S. form of Pravda.
Go back to school and take some courses in grammar and critical thinking, instead of swallowing Faux’s propaganda whole.
“When a crazy man has walked into a Holocaust museum and shot the security guard, maybe that’s an appropriate time to warn people: you’ve got a crazy person in your life, keep an eye on him,” [Smith] said in an interview in his Manhattan office last week.
Mr. Smith said he fully anticipated one result of those comments: the nasty e-mail increased.
“Thousands of them,” Mr. Smith said. “And I know they don’t mean the things they say. I know they don’t hate me and want death on my family.”
*********************************************************
I wouldn’t be so sure of that, myself. I realize that this may be largely due to the fact that when I was working toward my psychology degree, most of my professors were Freudians — but I happen to believe that people never say anything that they don’t mean, even if only on a subconscious level. Most people simply choose to deny that they meant what they said — either because they don’t have the courage and maturity to face the potential consequences of expressing their hostility openly, or because they can’t consciously acknowledge the depth of their own hostility and are shocked when it makes itself known. However, the brain and not the mouth is the organ which ultimately controls what people choose to say — so any sentiments which people choose to express are already in the head before they come out of the mouth.
This is one of the reasons why it’s said that a drunken man’s words are the sober man’s thoughts — alcohol has a way of lowering people’s inhibitions, sometimes to the point that they’re more inclined to say things which they secretly feel but don’t have the courage to say while sober. Since anonymity — such as is often found in a screen name or (to a lesser extent) in an e-mail address — often has a similar effect of encouraging people to say or do things which they would not have the courage to do openly, it’s reasonable to conclude that many of these people are expressing what they truly feel even though they might not/would not have the courage to do so to Mr. Smith’s face. (As Aesop stated in his fable of “The Wolf And The Kid”, it’s easy to be brave from a safe distance.) Anyone who’s been listening to the right-wing commentators or reading internet posts from conservatives and/or Republicans over the past ten years or so knows that a lot of these people are seething with suppressed anger…try as they might to deny it or hide it, it nonetheless comes out in nearly every word they utter.
June 22nd, 2009 at 11:57 amRealityCheck Says:
Why should you leftest care anyways? You can get all your propaganda from the other news networks anyways.
***
kind of early to start
drinking, isn’t it?
:|
June 22nd, 2009 at 12:01 pmAnd yet those who call for Smith’s firing will probably claim the network is “fair and balanced” and not at all ideological
June 22nd, 2009 at 12:02 pmI have to agree with the viewers. Shep doesn’t belong on FOX News.
It’s like having a black guy at a Klan rally. What is he thinking?
June 22nd, 2009 at 12:04 pm?
joe, I think he never stopped.
June 22nd, 2009 at 12:07 pmralph the wonder locust Says:
calavzma, I hear what you’re saying, but I don’t necessarily think a college degree is evidence that one is a journalist.
Sarah Palin has a degree in journalism. Enough said!
June 22nd, 2009 at 12:24 pmMr. Smith paused a moment before adding: “I do belong here.”
If you insist…
June 22nd, 2009 at 12:28 pmDon’t you go to journalism school because you can’t pass Trig?
June 22nd, 2009 at 12:32 pmForm what I’ve seen of Shep Smith he’s a a rational guy with some common sense–which makes him really stand out in the FOX stable of sycophantic hysterical moronic ideologues and as such he therefore DOESN’T belong on FOX.
I guess Mr. Smith thinks being the lone voice of reason and and rationality on FOX is somehow a noble and honest cause.
To believe that he has to believe that he’s making a difference.
He doesn’t.
At some point he;s got to recognize that although he doesn;t follow the company crowd in his reporting, he is still a company man, used by FOX to continue to justify their fraudulent claim of “balance” on the technicality of his presence in the line-up.
Shepard is going to have to face up to the fact that no matter how good his intentions, he’s ultimately whoring himself.
June 22nd, 2009 at 12:57 pmI have a hard time giving Shep a lot of credit for being normal. In comparison to the rest of the wack jobs over there at Fox he seems reasonable, but in the real world he comes up short. He is right he does belong at Fox. It is just that the radical right has no tolerance for things they do not agree with, actually no tolerance for anything. The purpose of fox is to support their radical vision of the world. The ratings at Fox is due to their viewers who need constant reassurance that their philosophy, if you can call it that, is not extinct.
The other thing is that Shep has the shiniest eyes on TV, wonder what that is from?
June 22nd, 2009 at 1:26 pmWhy a gay man would work for Fox is beyond me…
June 22nd, 2009 at 2:01 pmSmith is the only one on Fox that actually relates something close to the actual story that is being covered.
He is a brave man….and deserves kudos…..
It sort of parallells the “even a broken clock” comment.
Thanks Shep
June 22nd, 2009 at 2:06 pmA fan
They all belong there.
June 22nd, 2009 at 3:04 pmShep, when you are wallowing in a cesspool, is it realistic to expect anything other that putrid water? Think about it!!
June 22nd, 2009 at 5:23 pmIf Hannity and “that guy who cries” (as my Dad says) don’t lose their heads over his “entertainer” comment, then we know it’s all a fox, uh, I mean fix.
June 22nd, 2009 at 7:01 pmSooo… Hitler was an entertainer?
June 22nd, 2009 at 9:14 pm