Fox News' Brit Hume Signs Off On Top

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Fox News Channel anchor Brit Hume, who has announced his retirement from television news after three decades, concedes that not even he can always get it right.

Hume, who has been covering presidential races since the 1970s, noted that he shrugged off all of the parlor-game talk before John McCain named his running mate on Aug. 29.

"It wouldn't make a particle of difference," Hume recalled thinking at the time. "The least interesting question of the year was who John McCain would choose."

Famous last words. Enter charismatic Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and overnight, all bets were off as Palinmania initially swept the nation.

Summing up his record as a prognosticator, Hume laughed good-naturedly and concluded: "I suppose we'd have to look hard to find someone who's been wrong more often than I was."

That's vintage Hume. His critics predictably allege that he is a mouthpiece for conservatives but they're missing the point. Hume, who came to TV after a career working for newspapers and the revered investigative reporter Jack Anderson, has managed to remain an important presence on TV over the years because he brings a unique sensibility to a demanding job.

Throughout his 23 years at ABC and 12 at Fox News, Hume has been anything but a cookie-cutter TV journalist. He has stood apart because he has always struck me as the drollest anchor around.

Right now, NBC's Brian Williams anchors the most popular TV news show of all -- and I suspect that Williams borrowed a good deal of Hume's patently wry, straight-talking, world-weary broadcasting style.

Hume has been a steady, reassuring presence for millions of viewers. At a time when TV news anchors seem to strive to be defined by their political biases and not their journalistic credibility, Hume has commendably played the news down the middle. He doesn't yell and he isn't forever looking for a fight.

While Hume will be leaving "Special Report," the 6 p.m. Fox News show that has been top-rated for about seven years, he won't disappear from view. Much like Tom Brokaw at NBC, Hume will continue to appear as a political analyst on Fox's special reports and other programs.

Up close

I witnessed Hume up close one afternoon last week when Fox News hosted a well-attended lunch at tony "21" in Midtown Manhattan to celebrate his career. Hume spoke eloquently about his legacy and the ever-bewildering political scene. (Fox, like MarketWatch, the publisher of this column, is a unit of News Corp. )

In person, Hume, looks much younger than his 65 years. What comes across most profoundly is his unabashed love for the crazy, unpredictable, unscientific and utterly human political process. I had a feeling that Hume embraced all of it because as much as he enjoys his insider status, he revels in the twists and turns of a presidential campaign. He delights in being surprised just as much as the rest of us.

Leaving on top

Hume noted that the political scene is changing dramatically. In 2000, political journalists had to adjust to the complexities of the George Bush-Al Gore cliffhanger, the famous presidential race forever defined by such strange terms as "hanging chad."

"I stayed up late studying Florida case law on the Internet," he recalled.

Now, with the American financial system in tatters, journalists are expected to be Wall Street experts, overnight. In the past, the most popular post-election guessing game has been to figure out which person the president-elect would tap as his Secretary of State. This time around, it appears that the Treasury official will have the highest media profile, at least in early 2009.

"The Treasury Department is at the center of our lives now," he noted.

Hume said the economic breakdown in America has hit the presidential campaign "like a nuclear bomb."

While Obama appears to have a comfortable lead, Hume expecs the race to tighten, based on historical patterns. "It just does," he said.

Hume suggested that Obama would be leading by a bigger margin if he happened to be running against a sitting president, who might be getting the blame for the economic fiasco.

"(We'd) probably be looking at a 25- or 30-point Obama lead -- if the incumbent were running," Hume noted.

Hume believes he is stepping down at the right time. Remember, his wife Kim stepped down as Fox's Washington bureau chief two years ago. He expects to devote more time to activities he couldn't focus on as much during his anchor days. Hume said he intends to pursue his "spiritual life" with more vigor than ever.

Hume is retiring on top. In the third quarter of this year, he had his best three-month period ever, according to Nielsen Media Research. His show averaged 1.7 million viewers per night over that period. From Sept. 29 to Oct. 15, he averaged 2.2 million per program.

While he hasn't lost a beat during this endless campaign, he acknowledged that he has fretted about the pitfalls of staying too long in the job, like a baseball pitcher who lingers past his prime. "The worst thing that can happen is when you've lost your fastball," he said.

Hume has nothing to worry about.

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By Jon Friedman