Posted on 12/18/2009 11:37:08 AM PST by markomalley
When Fox News executives went looking to replace Brit Hume last year, they had to find someone to take over for their franchise newsman, the staid and steady Washington hand whose arrival in 1996 had conferred instant legitimacy on the upstart network.
But the network turned not to another Hume, not a traditional anchor-desk presence or deep-voiced TV vet, but to Bret Baier — sunny, serious, self-deprecating and approachable. Eight years ago, he was holding down the network’s bureau in Atlanta. Today, he steps before the camera every weekday to anchor Fox News’s “Special Report” one-hour news program.
Count Hume a fan. “My attitude is: I’d like to be Bret Baier,” Hume told POLITICO. “He’s an incredibly attractive, exceedingly able, totally honorable guy.”
Fox News is having a banner year in the ratings, but critics say it’s because the network has turned away from journalism and turned to advocacy, with its high-profile trio of conservative commentators: Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck. The White House recently took on Fox News as well, saying the network was a “wing of the Republican Party.”
When Fox News takes on its critics — and it does, defending its status as an objective news outlet — the network points to anchors Shepard Smith and Baier, a former White House correspondent whose program offers a straight-ahead reading of the day’s headlines every night.
Sandwiched between Beck at 5 p.m. and “The Fox Report With Shepard Smith” at 7 p.m., Baier’s “Special Report” offers an in-depth look at political news designed to appeal to Fox News’s viewership. Hume, who handpicked Baier as his successor, still regularly appears as a senior political analyst.
“Special Report” includes the Political Grapevine, a two-minute segment plugging political tidbits and Beltway gossip. The program is based on correspondent-driven live reports from Washington and ends with a roundtable discussion from a balanced panel of journalists. Baier is winning high ratings and high marks for his handling of the show.
“I would say Bret Baier is probably one of the best people doing that kind of newscast at any of the cable operations. He’s friendly; he’s relaxed but also engaging and objective,” said Fordham University media professor Paul Levinson, a new media expert. “CNN’s main problem is they’re too boring. Wolf Blitzer is great, but you wouldn’t call him engaged. MSNBC’s main problem is that they don’t pretend in any way to be objective [in the newscast]: They’re highly progressive.”
That seems to be what viewers think, as well.
Already Baier’s ratings have surpassed Hume’s from the final year of his decadelong run on the show. This month, Baier has averaged about 2.1 million viewers per night, according to Nielsen ratings. In December 2008, Hume averaged 1.6 million viewers each night.
Baier is also beating the competition.
Nielsen numbers show “Special Report’s” overall viewership is up 28 percent this December compared with last December, while competing programs that air at the same time — “The Situation Room” on CNN and “1600 Pennsylvania Avenue” (now “The Ed Show”) on MSNBC — fell by 37 and 18 percent, respectively. “The Situation Room” averaged about 597,000 viewers this month, while “The Ed Show” averaged about 491,000 viewers.
“I want to continue this success,” Baier said. “Brit laid the foundation and built the beginning of the house, and we’re building it up. We’d really like to make it a mansion. Our goal is to make it the premier news show, period.”
Baier attributes his success to several elements. His 6 p.m. show is part of a killer evening lineup led by Beck, who averaged 2.4 million viewers in third-quarter ratings.
Baier has made subtle changes to the program — but not enough to rattle viewers.
The graphics have been upgraded. Baier stands at the beginning of the newscast, and he’s increased the number of stories each night, while still making room for longer pieces, especially on health care.
Unlike Hume, who says his default expression tends to be a scowl, Baier often launches his broadcasts with his signature megawatt grin.
“Listen, I have fun. I’m not faking the smile when I’m smiling, and I think over time, my personality comes out more,” Baier said. “Beck is a tremendous boost to lead us in. He is a rising tide to all ships. He’s definitely provided a boost at 5 p.m., but we also hold it. ... I’d say last on that list of things is my presentation. The show is news-driven. Not me-driven.”
It took him months to convince himself that his name wasn’t going to disappear from the program graphic. He still gets nervous at about 4 p.m., when the previous night’s ratings are delivered to his inbox. He describes it as an “I wonder if people liked me today” feeling.
Other television notables describe him as a man who is genuinely warm — a rarity in the cutthroat world of broadcasters.
“He is one of those guys who goes out of his way to be nice to everybody. He’s the guy who comes up at parties and introduces himself,” said one former anchor.
His younger brother Tim Baier, a sportscaster in North Carolina, knows Bret as the older brother who once dumped Easter eggs into his basket to help him win an Easter egg hunt.
Baier spends early Saturday mornings playing a round of golf at Congressional Country Club. His Ralph Lauren-adorned home was recently featured in The Washington Post. He and his family recently gave $1 million to Children’s National Medical Center, the hospital that has helped care for his young son, who was born with life-threatening heart defects but is now a bubbly toddler.
When he’s not spending time with the family, Baier links up with his buddies: Dave Tafuri, a partner at Patton Boggs; RepEquity president Tripp Donnelly and Tom Davidson, co-founder of EverFi. The trio can often be found chowing down in Cafe Milano or Capital Grille.
Still, Baier’s transition has not been entirely seamless.
While Fox News still has plenty of access to White House officials, it’s a much different scene compared with Baier’s previous job as chief White House correspondent, when he landed in-depth interviews with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and had a good relationship with President George W. Bush.
A year after the Inauguration, Baier still has an outstanding request for Obama to appear on “Special Report,” but relations have been getting warmer over time. Baier recently interviewed Obama senior adviser David Axelrod, and Fox News White House correspondent Major Garrett interviewed Obama overseas.
“We’ve still had access,” Baier said. “We haven’t had as many interviews with the president or senior officials, but we’ve had a ton of access. ... There really haven’t been times when we haven’t gotten an answer. Even in the darkest days of the White House-Fox [News] whatever it was, we still had access.”
Baier got his start with Fox by starting the network’s Atlanta bureau in 1998. On Sept. 11, 2001, he drove directly from Georgia to the Pentagon, giving reports about the attack from the nearby Chevron station. He never returned to Atlanta and spent the next five years covering the Pentagon and traveling with troops in war zones.
Since then, Baier is never on the air without a small American flag pinned to his lapel, sending assistants scurrying to retrieve it minutes before he goes on if he doesn’t have it.
“I’ve spent a lot of time embedded with Special Ops. I saw the sacrifice they go through,” said Baier, who noted that Fox News Chairman and CEO Roger Ailes once told him that he could be fair, balanced and critical of the administration, “but it’s still OK to want the U.S. to win.”
There’s another victory Baier is counting on.
The anchor keeps an exact count of how many days it’s been since his 2-year-old son, Paul, endured his first open-heart surgery.
Born with serious heart defects, Paul has undergone a second open-heart procedure, a stomach surgery and three angioplasties. A fourth angioplasty is scheduled in the spring.
Baier’s office is covered with photos of his boy, which he proudly shows off to visitors. He recalls how he returned home recently to his son marching around the house, practicing his father’s show opener: “Bret Baier. Bret Baier. Bret Baier.”
While Paul’s struggles are barely noticeable now, he faces yet another open-heart surgery in the next three to four years — a battle Baier and his wife, Amy, are already bracing for.
“It’s always difficult to think about,” Baier says. “This really does affect who I am. When you face adversity with one of your children, it does affect how you look at things. Perhaps the little things stay little. You look at the big picture much more, and every time you come home, you hang your work at the door.”
Historically, Curley was a subustitute for Shemp first. I used to resent Shemp for not being Curley. That was a mistake. He didn’t try to be Curley nor should he have. He was plenty funny just as he was.
Joe Besser was a disaster.
“I’ll give you SUCH a pinch!”
He’s not even HALF the anchor Hume was—and regarding Hume’s comments themselves—I haven’t seen the laudatory quotes from Brit that you cite...but honestly, what would you EXPECT him to say?
Brett seems like a nice guy, and perhaps he’ll grow into the role—but at this point he’s average.
The TV term for that is a ‘kicker’ and it’s common among almost all newscasts.
>> at this point he’s average <<
Yeah, sure. That’s why he beats the pants off of the competition. /s
I like Brett, always have. He is everything said about him, for sure. He reminds me of a cross between Sam Donaldson and a former LA newscaster, Jerry Dunphy.
I think he’ll do great and be at the top for long time to come.
The show beats the competition because the competition sucks.
It’s okay to say that Brett has some growing and maturing to do before he’s an accomplished anchor.
Saying he’s better than he is just because you like him or FNC is just dumb.
Hope this helps.
and Amen!
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