Hume to Leave Fox News

[Sigonfile]

Fox Anchor Is Considering Leaving Show



By BRIAN STELTER (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/s/brian_stelter/index.html?inline=nyt-per)
Published: July 16, 2008
Brit Hume, the political anchor and Washington managing editor of the Fox News Channel, intends to step down from his nightly newscast after the presidential election, three of his friends and colleagues said this week.
Skip to next paragraph (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/16/arts/television/16fox.html?ref=arts#secondParagraph) http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/07/16/arts/television/hume.190.jpg Fox News
Brit Hume



Mr. Hume, 65, is expected to remain with Fox News in some capacity, most likely as a political analyst on the network and as a panelist on “Fox News Sunday,” the weekly public affairs program, they said. The people requested anonymity because of the sensitive nature of his contract negotiations, which are continuing. Mr. Hume’s departure as the host of Fox’s 6 p.m. political program, “Special Report,” would represent one of the most dramatic changes to Fox’s powerhouse schedule since the channel’s inception nearly 12 years ago.
Mr. Hume did not respond to requests for comment. A Fox spokeswoman said she would comment on contractual talks.
Mr. Hume was the most prominent anchor recruited by Roger Ailes (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/a/roger_e_ailes/index.html?inline=nyt-per) before Fox News began in 1996, and he has remained a cornerstone of the network, serving as the baritone voice of its Washington newscast. He anchors election coverage and helps oversee news coverage in the nation’s capital.
While the other cable news channels have repeatedly tinkered with time slots, Fox’s 6 to 11 p.m. schedule — a lineup anchored by Mr. Hume, Shepard Smith, Bill O’Reilly (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/o/bill_oreilly/index.html?inline=nyt-per), Sean Hannity and Alan Colmes, and Greta Van Susteren — has remained remarkably stable for most of the decade. The consistency has helped make Fox News, a unit of News Corporation, one of the most popular channels on cable for six straight years, since 2002.
In the second quarter of 2008, “Special Report” attracted 1.34 million viewers a night, making it Fox’s fourth most popular program. While other Fox shows have tilted toward tabloid-type stories, “Special Report” has remained the network’s political program of record, seeing itself as an alternative to the evening newscasts that are broadcast at the same time.
Mr. Hume has been an unbridled supporter of Fox and a believer that the network acts as a counterweight to liberal bias on other networks. At Fox, he has helped shape the coverage of President Bill Clinton (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/c/bill_clinton/index.html?inline=nyt-per)’s impeachment, the 2000 election stalemate, and the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Mr. Hume previously spent 23 years as a reporter for ABC News, including eight years as its chief White House correspondent.
Mr. Hume’s future at Fox has been the subject of speculation both inside and outside the network’s Washington bureau for some time. Mr. Hume’s wife, Kim, the longtime bureau chief in Washington, left Fox News in 2006.
Mr. Hume’s potential departure — without any obvious successor — may raise questions about the possible exits of other Fox personalities after the presidential election in November. Nearly three years ago in an interview with Newsday (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/n/newsday/index.html?inline=nyt-org), Mr. O’Reilly, the highest-rated host on Fox News, suggested that he didn’t foresee a long future for himself at Fox. Asked about his plans after the end of his current contract, Mr. O’Reilly immediately answered: “Retirement.”
Friends say Mr. Hume plans to spend more time at his farm in Virginia. Besides appearing as a weekly guest on “Fox News Sunday,” he may also fill in for Chris Wallace, the program’s moderator.

[Diplomat]

Brit Hume has had a long and distinguished career and has more than earned the right to scale back on his workload if he so chooses. God bless him.

[Produce man]

Good for him.

[s'news]

He's not leaving, according to the story, Sig. But there's video going around of him in a parking lot scuffle somewhere.

[Sigonfile]

He wasn't the one who got run over...it was Shepard Smith.

[buckpasser]

From the NY Post back in 2006:

"Marital sniping may have led to the departure of Brit Hume’s wife, Kim, from Fox News last week. Kim Hume’s imminent exit as Fox’s D.C. bureau chief was announced Thursday. The buzz out of Washington is that she and the anchorman had been tattletaling on each other to the chairman and CEO of Fox Television Stations. “They’d been calling Roger [Ailes] in New York separately,” reports our source. “They’d complain to him about each other.”

A Fox spokeswoman denied that either Hume has bothered Ailes. “Nothing could be further from the truth,” she said. But another source told us that the couple, who together weathered the suicide of Brit Hume’s son, Sandy, in 1998, often argued in front of staffers. “Brit’s not the easiest guy to get along with,” said the source. “You disagree with him, and it’s an argument. It’s his way or the highway. [Kim] is a tough cookie, but he speaks down to her in front of other people.”

[...]



Also...from Radar Online:

For months, a rumor has been circulating among TV news insiders in Washington, D.C., and New York that Brit Hume, Fox News Channel's managing editor in Washington and host of prime-time hour Special Report, has been having an extramarital affair with a younger colleague. The object of his alleged attentions: Megyn Kendall, a general-assignment correspondent who has been with the network since 2004.
There is no evidence to suggest that the rumors are true. Of the half-dozen sources who relayed the allegation to Radar, none could claim first-hand knowledge, and several Fox insiders said they believed it to be false. Still, the whispers have grown so loud that Hume and Kendall have been forced to deny them repeatedly to curious colleagues. (One Fox source said Hume seemed genuinely amused and somewhat flattered to be linked by gossip to the attractive and much younger Kendall.) A Fox spokesperson also flatly denied it, and suggested it was being "shopped around" by enemies of the network.

And while that might sound like paranoia, at least one such enemy does exist: publicist Paul Schur, a former Fox spokesman whose job it was to burnish Hume's image just months ago.

Last month, Schur, who worked with both Hume and Kendall in Fox's Washington bureau until he left the network in August, anonymously edited the gossip into Kendall's Wikipedia entry, inserting this claim: "There are many rumors that Kendall has a very 'special' relationship with managing editor Brit Hume, the reason for her plum assignments at Fox News." Radar was alerted to the Wikipedia entry by an anonymous e-mail sent in late December. Wikipedia keeps track of the IP address of each user who changes an entry; when Radar became suspicious that Schur was behind the change to Kendall's entry, a reporter sent him an e-mail with a link to a website maintained by a Radar staffer. When Schur visited the site, his computer's IP address was logged by the site's tracking software, and it matched the IP address of the Wikipedia user that inserted the rumor in Kendall's entry. (The offending sentence has since been deleted.)

Asked whether he had changed the Wikipedia entry or otherwise retailed the rumor, Schur declined to comment. Told of Schur's involvement, Fox's spokesperson said, "If it's true, it's unfortunate he has resorted to this."

It's unclear why Schur left Fox News; insiders described his departure as abrupt and unexplained, suggesting that he may have been trying to exact vengeance on his former employer. Whatever the reason, it's ironic that Fox, which has a notoriously ferocious and loyal PR shop, has been attacked by one of its own.

To be sure, in promoting the rumor of a Hume-Kendall tryst, Schur had help from reality. Hume's wife of 13 years, Kim Schiller Hume, headed the Washington bureau until recently; a report in the New York Daily News suggested that marital tensions had played a large role in her departure. Kendall, meanwhile, is recently divorced. As of today, in fact, she is reverting to her maiden name, Megyn Kelly, for on-air use.

Moreover, getting involved with an underling is virtually par for the course for Fox higher-ups. Rupert Murdoch, chairman of FNC parent News Corp., embarked on an affair with his current wife, Wendi Deng, when she was an employee of the Star TV affiliate, and married her in 1999. Roger Ailes, now chairman of Fox Television Stations, divorced his second wife, Norma, in 1995 and went onto marry his current wife, Beth Tilson, who had been his second-in-command at America's Talking. And star pundit Bill O'Reilly famously described elaborate sexual fantasies over the phone to one of his producers, Andrea Mackris, leading to a harassment allegations and a settlement of undisclosed size (reportedly around $2 million).

Then again, the fact of an extramarital relationship would sit uncomfortably with many of Hume's past pronouncements. Hume launched Special Report in 1998 to capitalize on the then-unfolding Monica Lewinsky scandal, and he frequently criticized President Clinton's conduct.

In August 2001, discussing the Gary Condit scandal on Fox News Sunday, he mused hopefully, "One of the things that might conceivably come out of this, coupled with the Clinton embarrassments, is a return to an idea that certain kinds of private behavior, be it private or not, are not acceptable. Is it not likely to be, or possible, that the old idea of marital fidelity will come back into vogue among politicians and here in this city, and that marital infidelity, especially with interns, will be thought of as taboo or perhaps even forbidden?"

As for Kendall, it's safe to say that if she has unprofessional feelings to conceal, she's not doing a very good job of it. When, in a July interview with FishbowlDC, she was asked to name her favorite working journalist, she said, "Brit Hume. The man truly knows everything about everything."

Later, in the same Q&A, Kendall was asked which of the seven deadly sins she most resembled. She answered, "Lust."

----------------------------------------

[New York'rr]

And she is smokin'.

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/158/360165059_732c5ebfd3.jpg

http://www.tvpredictions.com/megynkelly.jpg

Now, if you dig older ladies, there's Kim Hume.

http://www.mediabistro.com/fishbowlDC/original/humebye.jpg

If you're 65 and you still have a shot at dating the newly-single Megyn Kelly, what do you do?

What do...............................................y ou do?

[buckpasser]

You divorce your wife, New York'rr.

That's what you do.

You wait until it's finalized, then you start dating...if you desire.

Or better yet, don't divorce your wife. Work through your problems, if any.


McCain cheated on his wife, too. What's up with the Republicans' newly found fascination with cheating on your wife?

They not only support it, they celebrate it.


Family values, I guess...

[Diplomat]

Megyn Kelly got married in March, according to some of the newspapers I've seen online.

[buckpasser]

She was married again only two years after her first marriage ended in divorce.


Sounds like a winner. How many men can she go through???

[buckpasser]

Megyn Kelly got married in March, according to some of the newspapers I've seen online.

How does Diplomat bring up Kendall...ummm...Kelly's married life if he doesn't read my posts?


The biggest joke on Medialine got even funnier...

[The Mockingbird]

Well, personally, I'd take Kim Hume. :hug:

[Diplomat]

Well, personally, I'd take Kim Hume. :hug:

I think they are both attractive. Thanks fo New York'rr for posting the photos.

[buckpasser]

I think they are both attractive. Thanks fo New York'rr for posting the photos.

Why does Diplomat go out of his way to, "thank", New York'rr for posting the photos?

Diplomat was trying to give himself an, "out", for his earlier post.

He wanted to defend Kendall, but forgot he doesn't "read" my posts. A liar only has to slip up once, and he's caught.

And like a bad liar, he tries to cover his tracks by "thanking New York'rr" for the photos.

This guy is a liar, pure and simple.

Nowhere else on the thread does it mention Kendall's married life, but in my post.

[Produce man]

What's up with the Republicans' newly found fascination with cheating on your wife?Gee, I don't know, maybe you should consult JFK or Slick Willy...:rolleyes:

[Produce man]

She was married again only two years after her first marriage ended in divorce.


Sounds like a winner. How many men can she go through???Jealousy doesn't become you, bucko.

[Brain Cramp]

Somewhere between ABC and FOX Brit Hume went from a sharp, insightful reporter to a crabby, complaining fuddy duddy. It's about time he retired just so he can sit on his front porch in a rocker and yell at kids to get the hell off his lawn.

[Fake Post]

I hate to sound callous about his fate, but who cares? I've met Hume before on a couple of occasions and found him to be the typical shallow tv news type who cares more about having a hair out of place than whether or not he has his facts straight.

I'm sure he will land on his feet somewhere but I could care less about his attempt to wrestle a new contract from the network that specializes in hot blondes for ratings.

[Kace]

"What happened...?"

-Brit Hume, 2006 Midterm Elections

[Diplomat]

I hate to sound callous about his fate, but who cares? I've met Hume before on a couple of occasions and found him to be the typical shallow tv news type who cares more about having a hair out of place than whether or not he has his facts straight.

I'm sure he will land on his feet somewhere but I could care less about his attempt to wrestle a new contract from the network that specializes in hot blondes for ratings.

Interesting, considering Hume came from print. A friend of mine who traveled with him covering President Bush the Father always found Hume to be down-to-earth and very knowledgeable about government, politics and the players therein.

[s'news]

He's not retiring. He'll still be there.

At least, that's how the story reads.

[Diplomat]

I think only one person has said he is retiring. If this story is accurate, he is merely cutting back on his workload. And I believe he has earned that right after a distinguished career.

[Roy Hobbs]

How about the no-nonsense punditry of David Hume?
http://dalvaradoprf313.files.wordpress.com/2007/04/david-hume.jpg

[Fake Post]

Interesting, considering Hume came from print. A friend of mine who traveled with him covering President Bush the Father always found Hume to be down-to-earth and very knowledgeable about government, politics and the players therein.

I met him when he was White House correspondent for ABC News. And yes, he did work for the Baltimore Evening Sun and alongside the late Jack Anderson.

However, my conversation with him was interrupted more than a few times by him asking if his hair was out of place. Of course it could have been that my presence was so boring that he just couldn't take it any more.

[Diplomat]

I met him when he was White House correspondent for ABC News. And yes, he did work for the Baltimore Evening Sun and alongside the late Jack Anderson.

However, my conversation with him was interrupted more than a few times by him asking if his hair was out of place. Of course it could have been that my presence was so boring that he just couldn't take it any more.

Nah. I doubt you were boring. I stay awake to read your posts and I do not think you are boring. Maybe he was probably nagged about that one too many times by bossy or schoolmarmish co-workers. I've dealt with a few like that.

Of course, Sam Donaldson probably would not have asked you about that.