Veteran TV anchor Chris Wallace signed off his Fox News Sunday show after 18 years to join CNN, dealing a blow to Fox’s news operation at a time when its opinion side has become preeminent.
CNN announced shortly after his show ended that Wallace, who is 74, will join the streaming service CNN+ as an anchor. The service is due to debut sometime next year.
“It is the last time, and I say this with real sadness, we will meet like this,” Wallace said on Fox on Sunday morning.
“Eighteen years ago, the bosses here at Fox promised me they would never interfere with a guest I booked or a question I asked. And they kept that promise,” he said.
Wallace was a veteran broadcast network newsman, working at both ABC and NBC News, before the late Roger Ailes lured him to Fox with the promise of his own Sunday show.
Wallace is known for his methodical preparation and willingness to ask hard questions of all guests.
He persevered even when Murdoch-owned Fox News shifted further right with Donald Trump’s administration, as news shows often soft-pedal issues reflecting badly on the now-former president while comment shows can tend to mislead the public on facts relating to US elections, the 6 January insurrection by extremist Trump supporters or coronavirus and vaccines, sometimes veering into offensive insults and racial bias.
Wallace was the first Fox News staffer to moderate a presidential debate, in 2016. His 2020 performance attracted criticism for not reeling in Trump when he broke debate protocols in trying to steamroller Joe Biden.
Wallace generally co-existed with Fox’s opinion side and infrequently took them on publicly, although in 2017 he said it was “bad form” when opinion hosts bashed the media.
“I have been free to report to the best of my ability, to cover the stories I think are important, to hold our country’s leaders to account,” Wallace said Sunday.
In CNN’s announcement, he said: “I look forward to the new freedom and flexibility streaming affords in interviewing major figures across the news landscape.”
