Bret Baier On 30 Years Of Fox News: ‘We Were Always Scrappy’

‘We were always scrappy’

“So I look at those times, and I think back to all of the years, and I think what was one thread that went through everything is that we always were scrappy,” Baier told me. “You know, we were always digging it out. Even when we were number one for years, we still had that mentality of of being scrappy, and and it has served us well in 30 years.”

Baier, who joined the network from local news in 1998, remembers well just how scrappy the operation was, as he launched was was generously called the Fox News “Atlanta bureau” out of his apartment, outfitted with a fax machine and a cell phone.

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“You know, I would hire freelance crews. It was really just me out of there, and you know, someone in the airport would come up and say, ‘You’re Bret Baier with Fox News,’ and I would be shocked, and I’d say, ‘Yeah,’ and they’d say, “’I love Fox News. You report, I decide.’ You know, and you could see it was catching on.”

Watch Mark Joyella’s full interview with Bret Baier:

A dynamic leader, familiar names, and the consistent DNA of Fox News

How do you convince viewers to try a news network they’ve never heard of? For Fox News chairman Roger Ailes, it was all about assembling a team of brash opinion hosts balanced by recognizable journalists.

One of the first to join the news side of the house was Brit Hume, hired away from his perch as White House correspondent for ABC News–and soon to be a mentor for Baier.

“You know in those days I was just looking to get on Brit Hume’s show,” Baier told me, referring to Special Report, the nightly newscast he now anchors. “That was my goal: is to get on Brit Hume’s show. He eventually became my mentor and friend.”

“I look back at my career and my time at Fox, and I’ve seen all kinds of things, but there has been this consistency to it,” Baier said. “And when I took over for Brit in January of 2009, that was a big thing because he was a legend and an icon. And over time, I think that the audience got to to know me and Special Report in a different light, and fortunately, Brit has stayed on as chief political analyst and and been with us the entire time.”

The rise to number one–and critics calling Fox News biased

As the leading face of Fox News’ straight news side–separate from the opinion hosts who fill prime time and dominate much of the discussion about Fox–Baier knows full well that the network gets knocked regularly as a place that doesn’t actually do news.

“You know, we obviously have our opinion shows, but we have a really robust news presence, and and I’m proud of that,” he told me. “So, you know, when I travel the country, I hear from people that really appreciate that there’s a a news program as much as they appreciate the opinion programs,” comparing Fox to a newspaper with both journalism and opinion in its pages.

Baier says Fox has been incredibly consistent in that approach, as its competitors–CNN and MS NOW (previously MSNBC)–have mirrored Fox’s opinionated shows in prime.

“I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about the decisions of the other network executives or what they’re thinking,” Baier told me. “I do think that they they made a bet early on that they were going to be ideologically one way, and I don’t see a lot of news programs–like pure news–on other cable networks, and I think that that’s a miss.”

Where Fox News goes from here

Baier has heard the predictions that Fox News–like cable and broadcast television–are facing huge changes in how audiences get their news, with the legacy networks and cable drawing smaller–and older–audiences. But he’s not entirely convinced that cable news is a dying breed.

“I think that that whole line about an older audience… I get it, but we still some nights beat MS NOW and CNN two-to-one in both overall ratings and the demo,” Baier said, referring to viewers 25-to-54, the key demographic group valued by national advertisers. “But you know, it depends night to night. But we’re still winning, and I think the change has to happen. The evolution has to happen. But we’re riding both, you know, walking and chewing gum at the same time.”

‘My kids…don’t really watch me on TV’

To reach younger viewers where they are, Fox News has expanded its digital offerings, and built a strong presence in streaming. Baier himself makes posts to TikTok in addition to producing segments for his nightly newscast.

“I do think that there’s a little bit of searching going on to try to find the equation that Fox has had for 30 years,” he told me. “I think we keep on evolving. We have many more platforms than we ever did. We are really pushing streaming and online and all kinds of things. And my kids, 19 and 16, two boys. You know they don’t really watch me on TV. They watch me if I post on YouTube or Instagram or on TikTok, and we’re we’re doing that increasingly.”

As for the secret of Fox’s success, Baier said it’s simple: the people. “The people behind the scenes are the ones that are the unsung heroes.”