My wife said I was crazy.
This was 1996, thirty years ago.
I worked for the established brand name in cable television, CNN.
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Why then, she asked, with three young school-age children still at home, was I willing to give up that prime seat to join a start-up cable network being launched by a controversial Australian media mogul, Rupert Murdoch?
And this start-up Fox News Channel faced an uphill fight just to get on cable systems in big cities, including New York.
“Crazy!” Yes! But I told her they were going to be scrappy, innovative, and give me a foothold on the ground floor of the next era of news.
So, I went with the new kids in cable news.
And Fox delivered over the last 30 years by doing news for people who did not watch news. Fox is now often the number one channel of any kind on cable.
From the early days, the screen has been full of colorful graphics. Stories come and go fast. Heroes and villains are clear-cut. Crime stories and war stories took center stage — no matter where they occurred.
The on-air people did not speak down to the audience as experts. They talked to them as friends and neighbors, always shaking their heads at a crazy world.
As Brit Hume, now Fox’s chief political analyst, told me at the start, Fox was willing to do stories being ignored by the news networks and cable outlets. He said Fox News was picking up money others left on the street.
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On top of being daring, Fox had the novel idea of featuring right-of-center voices, Republican political players who generally felt like outsiders on the other networks.
Roger Ailes, the first head of the network, knew politics. He was a top GOP consultant. And his top programming aide, Chet Collier, a Democrat, had been Ailes’ mentor at the popular daytime talk show, “The Mike Douglas Show.”
They sold me on Fox, and they knew exactly what they were getting with me. I’d worked at The Washington Post and CNN. In bestselling books, I called out politicians on the right and the left.
And as a Black journalist, I was known to trade punches with Black politicians.
Fox’s founders wanted me to trade punches with their right-wing media personalities. I was happy to get in on the action.
From the start, Fox made good television. Ratings slowly climbed as viewers discovered turn-up-the-volume debates among finger-pointing, smirking, laughing, and eye-rolling personalities.
Fox was in the right place as bombshell revelations hit the air about the president of the United States having a sexual relationship with a White House intern.
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The impeachment of a president included nightly stories about the popular President Clinton facing a hard-edged prosecutor, Kenneth Starr. And then came provocative reports about a blue dress and cigars. The ratings climbed.
What I remember most about those early years of Fox is being on set in the D.C. bureau with Brit Hume, then the managing editor. He held the air for hours of hearings and press conferences. I was by his side as we struggled with new equipment, technicians discovering buttons, and producers shouting breaking news into our earpieces.
The same chaos followed when “Fox News Sunday” hit the air. No studio was ready. So, Tony Snow, the show’s first moderator, and Marty Ryan, the top producer, had to hunt for historic homes, even gardens, in Washington, D.C.
For Snow, Hume, and an all-star panel of D.C. commentators, including Fred Barnes, Mort Kondracke — hail to the Beltway Boys — Mara Liasson, Bill Kristol, and Charles Krauthammer, every show was about speaking directly to the hot, populist passions in politics.
It was about being sharp with each other and giving no quarter to political guests. Creating the best show for the people at home has remained the goal for Fox.
Krauthammer would win laughs and applause on the lecture circuit by beginning his speeches by saying he was grateful to be invited anywhere Juan Williams could not interrupt him.
By 2000, Fox was perfectly positioned to offer 24/7 news and analysis of the disputed presidential election, the Florida recount, and the 5–4 Supreme Court decision that gave the White House to an underdog Republican who lost the popular vote.
And when terrorists struck the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001 — 25 years ago this month — Fox was there with an established news-gathering operation and unique access to the new Republican administration of President George W. Bush. Then came Fox News’ coverage of the war in Iraq and the fight against terrorist cells in Afghanistan.
Fox’s ratings grew as more and more viewers trusted that, no matter their politics, Fox delivered the most compelling take on the sizzling stories defining each election, especially the 2008 race that saw a little-known Black senator running against former First Lady Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination.
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It was a freezing night in Des Moines when the “All-Star” panel realized Barack Obama, a Black man, was about to win the Iowa caucuses.
On the air, I started crying. My emotion got to me as I tried to explain to the Fox audience what that moment meant to our nation’s history, and especially to Black American history.
Another memory is being lustily booed by an auditorium full of South Carolina Republican voters in 2012. The booing started when, while asking questions at a Fox-sponsored GOP primary debate, I questioned Newt Gingrich about his use of racially loaded rhetoric concerning President Obama and the poor.
Years later, I would joke with the Speaker that he had me to thank for his upset victory in the Palmetto State primary.
That exchange became one of the first viral moments of a presidential campaign in the early internet age.
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By Obama’s second term, I was spending more time in the New York studios as a co-host of “The Five.” By 2015, I began nearly a decade of living in New York to co-host the show. My role was described by Ailes as a center-left foil to the conservatives on the show.
Politico summed up my role this way: “Fox’s Lone-Wolf Liberal Had a Tough Job. But It Made for Better TV.”
“Juan Williams was particularly good at what might be the hardest, least appreciated, and most important job in cable news,” the outlet wrote.
“The Five” became the number one show on the number one cable channel and delivered a robust message about debate in America. No matter your politics, no matter if you are with conservatives or liberals, and no matter racial and religious lines, “We the People” — Americans of all stripes — can find common ground in defense of honest debate, even with rants and occasional posturing.
“You cut a path through the jungle,” a friend recently told me as we reminisced about the state of the media and the dearth today of conservative media platforms where liberals feel comfortable appearing, as well as liberal platforms where conservatives feel comfortable appearing.
I told him that since Fox became the number one cable news channel, it is often the case that more Democrats are watching Fox than any other cable news channel.
I’ve written more than a dozen books over the last 30 years. And on book tours, hard-right conservatives show up to tell me they disagree with me but love hearing a different point of view from someone they trust and, sometimes grudgingly, even like.
In truth, working with Brit, Shannon Bream, Bret Baier, Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, and so many others almost always ended with more conversation, then dinner, a ballgame, or a beer. Brit once said the two of us are like TV’s pro wrestlers. We fight like hell tonight, and the next night we go to another town and do it again.
At its best, Fox News is a reminder that social media and the internet are not real life. The bitterness we see online is produced by computer algorithms designed to divide Americans. Fox is about the audience. There’s a bond.
That is why, on Fox News’ 30th anniversary, I find myself thinking less about ratings or political fights than about friendships.
I think about Charles.
I think about Tony.
I think about Roger and Chet.
I think about Brit, Mara, Bill, Fred, Chris, and Bret.
I think about people like Cherie Grzech, who directed politics, and Porter Berry, who ran shows before taking control of FoxNews.com. I think about former television producer Nate Fredman. I think about Lynne Jordal Martin, who edits for FoxNews.com. I shared offices with Mike Emanuel and Leland Vittert.
I think about the amazing Fox audience — the countless people who treat me as a friend when we meet in diners, airports, supermarkets, campaign rallies, ball games, convention halls, studios, and green rooms across America.
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And I think about the people viewers rarely see: editors, producers, bookers, tech operators, directors, hair and makeup artists, security guards, and janitors.
So, three cheers for Fox News — one for each decade we have been on the air.
Thank you to the viewers and FoxNews.com readers who made our success possible.
Thirty years ago, my wife thought I was crazy.
She still thinks I am, and maybe she’s right.
But I’m awfully glad I took the chance.
