NewsNation
Fox News anchor Leland Vittert, who parted ways with the network last week after months off the air, has landed at the new cable network NewsNation.
“It’s been in the works for a while,” Vittert said of his talks with the network in an interview with Mediaite Tuesday night. “They came to me late last year talking about their new venture of unbiased, fact-based reporting with an incredible company behind it.”
Vittert served as a foreign correspondent and anchor at Fox News for 11 years. Recently, he made news with tough interrogations ofboth Democrats and surrogates of President Donald Trump, by facing the wrath of the president on Twitter, and getting caught in tense moments while in the field at George Floyd protests and the Capitol attack.
The Fox News weekend anchor disappeared from the air in January, prompting questions from fans and speculation as to the reasons for his absence. Last Friday, Mediaite reported that Fox News and Vittert had amicably parted ways.
Sources told Mediaite that Vittert suffered a serious case of Covid-19 in January which kept him off the air. He declined to comment when asked about the illness.
NewsNation was initially launched as a three-hour, prime time cable news program billed as a home for unbiased news. It debuted in September on WGN America, a Chicago cable channel that reaches 75 million homes. Nexstar, the local news giant that owns WGN America, rebranded the channel in March as NewsNation. The prime time show was renamed NewsNationPrime.
Vittert will start by covering national affairs and provide special reports for the network, and will begin anchoring his own show later this year. He pointed to the power of Nexstar — and its billions in revenue — as something that attracted him to join the network.
“These guys really have the staying power to create something special,” he said. “And there’s a real void in the in the marketplace as news has become more and more polarized.”
A spokesperson for NewsNation pointed to a chart tracking media bias by Ad Fontes, a press watchdog organization, that placed the network in the center.
NewsNation has faced turmoil. A New York Times report from March described “abysmal ratings and disaffected staff members” as hurdles facing the network. The news director and managing editor resigned this year, and the Times reported that staffers are concerned the network — which employs former Fox News executive and Trump aide Bill Shine as a consultant — is adopting a rightward tilt, one not in keeping with its pledge to maintain unbiased.
Vittert called Shine “one of the finest men in the world,” but said he hasn’t had much of a professional interaction with him since he started talks with NewsNation. He has dealt instead with Sean Compton, a Nexstar executive who is leading the network.
As for whether the viability of the NewsNation model — a full-fledged cable news network that withholds the partisan candy doled out by the likes of MSNBC and Fox News — Vittert is optimistic.
“The American people are smart and there is obviously a market for really ideologically-based television news,” he said. “And there’s a big part of the center that’s been left open.”
At Fox News, Vittert distinguished himself in the aftermath of the 2020 election through tough interviews with Trump surrogates pushing voting conspiracy theories. When I asked what he thought of Fox’s post-election coverage, which often supported Trump’s lies about the vote, Vittert declined to criticize his former network.
“Journalists make lousy media critics,” he said. “We get to have the questions, not the answers. And this is something I don’t have an answer to.”
Vittert, who is from the Midwest, is also keen to move to Chicago, where NewsNation is based.
“There’s something that I’m really excited about, about getting back to the American heartland, the American Midwest, and being able to spend more time with the people who we’re reporting on,” he said.
“The rest of America does not care about Twitter,” added Vittert, who has not tweeted since Jan. 13. “Twitter does not put food on your table. It does not send your kids to school, it doesn’t help your kids get a job at the local Dairy Queen… I think there’s a real advantage in that of not being in the studios in New York or your home studio and in whatever ritzy suburb you’re in, in D.C. or New York.”
He already has some anchoring experience outside the Acela corridor. Vittert wasn’t always based in Washington D.C., having been a 27-year-old anchor in Denver when Fox News hired him to serve as a foreign correspondent.
“I was skiing during the week, anchoring on the weekends, having the time of my life,” he said. “I packed my bags and I went from skiing Vail to getting shot at Libya in less than a year.”
Vittert said he sees the gig at NewsNation as the same kind of new chapter.
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