When compared with how the network described fellow newsman Shepard Smith upon his departure, Fox News released a frigid statement on long-time Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace’s departure for CNN’s new streaming platform.
Wallace, 74, said he was “ready for a new adventure” at the end of his regular broadcast Sunday. The network’s unattributed statement on Wallace’s departure read in full: “We are extremely proud of our journalism and the stellar team that Chris Wallace was a part of for 18 years. The legacy of FOX News Sunday will continue with our star journalists, many of whom will rotate in the position until a permanent host is named.”
By contrast, as Washington Post reporter Jeremy Barr pointed out, when Smith departed Fox News in 2019, network president Jay Wallace gushed over him at length, calling him “one of the premier newscasters of his generation” with a “monumental 23-year tenure.” At the time, Smith was simply leaving Fox and not jumping ship to another network like rival CNN—as Wallace just did. (Smith ultimately landed at CNBC. In an interview earlier this year, he said working at Fox News had become “untenable” for him thanks to the “lies” being presented as facts on its opinion shows. “I stuck with it for as long as I could,” he said.)
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