Fox News Taps Bill Hemmer To Anchor News Hour In Shepard Smith’s Former Time Slot

Ted Johnson

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Bill Hemmer will anchor an hour long newscast on Fox News Channel starting in January, filling the time slot after Shepard Smith’s departure.

Fox News announced Hemmer as the permanent anchor in the 3 p.m. ET hour on Monday.

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Bill Hemmer Reports will launch on Jan. 20. Hemmer will exit Fox News Channel’s America’s Newsroom, which airs from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. ET, and a rotating journalist will join anchor Sandra Smith until a permanent co-anchor is named.

Since Smith’s surprise departure in October, Fox News Channel has featured a rotating series of substitute anchors until a permanent replacement was named.

“Bill is an incredible newsman and his ability to cut to the heart of the story while humanizing major events has made him a standout talent in news,” said Jay Wallace, president and executive editor of Fox News Media. “As we start gearing up for the 2020 election, we are thrilled to have him lead our news division through what will sure to be an eventful year.”

Hemmer joined Fox News in 2005 and has co-anchored America’s Newsroom since its launch in 2009.

Smith asked to be released from his contract in October, with a surprise announcement at the end of his Friday edition of Shepard Smith Reporting. At times, he had been one of the few critics of President Donald Trump on the channel, and certainly a contrast to its primetime opinion hosts.

“Even in our currently polarized nation, it is my hopes that the facts will win the day, and that the truth will always matter, that journalism and journalists will always thrive,” Smith said at the time he stepped down. But his spokesman said that his decision to depart was “Shep’s decision and his alone.”

Among the recent highlights of Hemmer’s tenure at Fox News was an interview with Attorney General William Barr in May, and a sitdown with former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice in May 2017. He and Martha MacCallum co-moderated a candidate forum in Cleveland, Ohio, in August, 2015 and a debate Des Moines, Iowa in January, 2016. Before joining Fox News, he was an anchor for CNN.

 

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