The Briefing Room
General Category => National/Breaking News => Topic started by: Atomic Cow on May 01, 2014, 12:12:22 am
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After tweaking anchor Shepard Smith’s newsroom duties last year, Fox News has denied allegations that the changes were a result of Smith asking to come out as gay.
A story published by Gawker Wednesday alleges that Smith was taken off of the primetime-aired “Fox Report” after attending Fox News topper Roger Ailes’ annual Fourth of July picnic with his reported boyfriend. Gawker’s story reports that around the same time, Smith was renegotiating his contract with the network and that he had asked Ailes for the go-ahead to publicly acknowledge his sexuality.
In a joint statement, Ailes and Smith called the story “100% false and a complete fabrication.”
“As colleagues and close friends at Fox News for 18 years, our relationship has always been rooted in a mutual respect, deep admiration, loyalty, trust, and full support both professionally and personally,” it read.
The Gawker story alleged that Smith’s superior Bill Shine, the channel’s Executive Vice President of Programming, “flipped out” when the anchor began introducing his boyfriend to co-workers at the party, but a spokesperson for Fox News said that Shine wasn’t even at the Fourth of July party and that “no such meeting ever took place in regard to Shep, nor would it ever.”
Smith’s boss and immediate supervisor, in fact, is Jay Wallace, senior vice president of news. Shine runs opinion and programming at the network.
The spokesperson also pointed out that Smith’s new contract was signed prior to the event described in the article and reported by Business Insider July 2, making the alleged negotiations “impossible.”
Smith was named managing editor of the cabler’s news division last year and his “Studio B” program at 3 p.m. was renamed “Shepard Smith Reporting.”
He has been at the cable news network since 1996.
https://tv.yahoo.com/news/fox-news-denies-shepard-smith-demotion-result-him-224354905.html
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I don't care if Shep is gay or not, I can't stand him!
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He was gone for several months last year and came back looking terrible...he is looking better now but I never did hear what was wrong with him...
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I don't care if Shep is gay or not, I can't stand him!
I don't care for him, either. He was married back in the 80s and 90s. Right now, he is engaged to Patti Freese, whoever that is.
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Shemp Smith?? Too good..... :whistle:
lol
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I don't care if Shep is gay or not, I can't stand him!
Ditto.
He's a TERRIBLE reporter. His 'work' (i.e. histrionics) during Katrina was pathetic.
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He was gone for several months last year and came back looking terrible...he is looking better now but I never did hear what was wrong with him...
He looked so bad I was sure he had AIDS.
I'm still not sure he doesn't.
Can't stand him.
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Ditto.
He's a TERRIBLE reporter. His 'work' (i.e. histrionics) during Katrina was pathetic.
"Can't someone help these poor people."
If he said it once he said it a hundred times.
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He should buy the Clippers, come out of the closet, throw his support behind Nader and call Obama an uppity, know-it-all mulatto.
The MSM won't know what to do.
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I don't care if Shep is gay or not, I can't stand him!
Ditto that!
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I also could care less what his sexual preference is. Gay or not I never liked his show. He's has always been nothing but a clone of the news anchors you see on any of the alphabet channels often favoring the liberal side of any story. I would love to see them bring back Laurie Dhue, but the Blaze has her now.
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I don't care if Shep is gay or not, I can't stand him!
Amen to that. He's embarrassingly bad. Joel McHale on "The Soup" mocks him mercilessly - and Shep deserves every bit of it.
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I cannot stand him. He is one of the reasons I quit watching fox. The other reasons....Geraldo, ORielly and Huck.
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I cannot stand him. He is one of the reasons I quit watching fox. The other reasons....Geraldo, ORielly and Huck.
Bret and Megan...das it.
The rest is not worth watching.
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He's a bombastic little sod and I avoid him if at all possible. Having said that - don't give crap one if he's gay or not.