Fox News' Bret Baier Profiled

Fox News' 'Special Report' was always going to be a tough show to anchor for whoever took over after the departure of Brit Hulme, not for Bret Baier though it seems.  The anchor, who used to run Fox News' Atlanta bureau has taken it in his stride, with his predecessor even announcing himself as a fan.

Politico's Erika Lovley has profiled Baier and writes;

...the network turned not to another Hume, not a traditional anchor-desk presence or deep-voiced TV vet, but to Bret Baier — sunny, serious, self-deprecating and approachable. Eight years ago, he was holding down the network’s bureau in Atlanta. Today, he steps before the camera every weekday to anchor Fox News’s “Special Report” one-hour news program.

Count Hume a fan. “My attitude is: I’d like to be Bret Baier,” Hume told POLITICO. “He’s an incredibly attractive, exceedingly able, totally honorable guy.”

Fox News is having a banner year in the ratings, but critics say it’s because the network has turned away from journalism and turned to advocacy, with its high-profile trio of conservative commentators: Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck. The White House recently took on Fox News as well, saying the network was a “wing of the Republican Party.”

When Fox News takes on its critics — and it does, defending its status as an objective news outlet — the network points to anchors Shepard Smith and Baier, a former White House correspondent whose program offers a straight-ahead reading of the day’s headlines every night.

Sandwiched between Beck at 5 p.m. and “The Fox Report With Shepard Smith” at 7 p.m., Baier’s “Special Report” offers an in-depth look at political news designed to appeal to Fox News’s viewership. Hume, who handpicked Baier as his successor, still regularly appears as a senior political analyst.

Read more here.