"I remember that funeral procession coming down the street. I wasn't a huge Elvis fan, but the idea of showing an enormous news event live as it was happening, I thought, if they can do this, imagine the stories that can be told as they happen. That's when I got fired up about the news," Smith said in a recent interview.
Smith, 38, is a big part of the current Fox News Channel insurgency. He is anchor of The Fox Report every weekday, he anchors a news and interview show Studio B with Shepard Smith every weekday and will return as anchor of a weekly newsmagazine show early next year. Additionally, he is being honored by the Liberty Bowl this year.
After high school at Marshall Academy and a journalism degree from the University of Mississippi, Smith began the rounds of local TV news, primarily in Florida: Panama City, Fort Myers, Orlando and Miami, where he worked at the Fox station that became famous for its emphasis on blood and carnage.
"The process of gathering the news is the same no matter what we are gathering," he said.
A Current Affair hired him as it tried to reinvent itself as a serious news operation, going out of business in the process. Smith began reporting for the Fox affiliates' news service in 1996, then reported for the news channel itself, and has anchored The Fox Report for a little more than three years.
The program is the No. 3 ranked cable news program, averaging 1.424 million viewers fourth-quarter-to-date. The two top-rated cable news programs are the two that follow The Fox Report: The O'Reilly Factor and Hannity & Colmes. Larry King Live on CNN comes in fourth.
Viewers aren't the only ones recognizing Smith. So is the Liberty Bowl, which has named him this year's winner of the "Spirit of '76 Award" for his on-air work in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
The Fox Report will make your head spin, with its flashy, ever-changing graphics, its pulse-quickening music and its whooshing sounds that propel you from story to story. (And there are a lot of stories in each newscast, including at least four a night in its "Around the World in 80 Seconds" segment.)
It all is part of what Smith calls the Fox attitude and the Fox edge.
". . . Treat every story for what it's worth and keep it real," he explained.
Smith speaks in a more conversational, informal style than most anchors. He gets excited. He gets sarcastic. He is not one for a calm, clear voice with impossibly crisp diction. He says that style is a legacy of radio announcers, who entered television in its infancy.
"To me, television is different. People are letting us into their living rooms at night, and people in their living rooms don't tell stories the way they do elsewhere," he said. "If (the stories are) interesting, tell them like you would tell them at home."
That means cutting out verbs in favor of action-packed " - ing" words. Some recent examples:
"Opponents telling a federal court . . ." or "Five million gallons leaking . . ." or "A twin-engine plane going down . . ."
"Don't waste people's time, but don't cheat them, either," he said. "If it only takes 15 seconds to tell a story, use 15 seconds, all the while realizing ours is a visual medium, so put as many pictures on screen as humanly possible and do it quickly."
The Fox Report distinguishes itself in a few other ways. One is its "You decide" segment, capitalizing on the channel's ever-repeated mantra, "We report. You decide."
The reports come from around the country and usually involve problems and controversies that don't necessarily make national newscasts.
On many occasions, there's no question where Smith stands on a "You decide" issue by the inflection in his voice, or his choice of wording.
"Is there an agenda? No way," he says, even as he indicates there might indeed be an agenda. "My inflection is a reflection of what people think. Sometimes you can call a spade a spade. When it walks like duck, waddles like a duck, quacks like a duck, nine times out of 10 it's a duck. We are not the politically correct network. Is there a little bit of room for comment in the lead-in to that story? I think so."
Each newscast ends with the "G Block" (G being the seventh letter of the alphabet, the segment being the seventh of the newscast.) It is a rollicking, fast, saucy look at the world of popular culture, and Smith clearly enjoys doing it.
For instance, in a recent report on the singer Shakira's problems on stage, Smith said, "Her clothes, they just couldn't take it . . . her pants split on stage and her top popped at a party."
"I don't know what half of it means, I really don't," he said. "It's the goofy and the interesting, a nice release at the end of the day."
On Jan. 23, he returns as host of the Fox broadcasting network's newsmagazine The Pulse, which had a short run last summer.
"We're not going to be doing it in a big flashy studio," a la last summer's program, he said. "We will shoot a lot on location, be more in-depth with stories, let them breathe a little bit. We're up against Will & Grace, The Bachelorette, CSI. I think they call it Fox's black hole. We're going to find a little news audience, do interesting stories, some entertainment and stories affecting our lives."
By Tom Walter
walter@gomemphis.com
December 12, 2002
THE PULSE IS BACK...JANUARY 23, 2003...ON YOUR LOCAL FOX STATION