This Times-Picayune profile of Fox News Channel's Shepard Smith is probably the most interesting Polaroid of his mind and personality this fan has seen to date. On Katrina's aftermath, he says:
"It all happened, and there's an attempt to revise history going on around us, and I think part of our responsibility as witnesses to this calamity and this disaster of disasters that followed the natural disaster, we have an obligation and a duty to not allow revisionist historians to minimize the catastrophe that was, and I would say in large part, still is New Orleans."
For some of the disconnect, Smith blames himself.
"This to me is the biggest thing to happen to this nation in my lifetime," he said. "And that's including 9/11, because of the size and scope and scale of it, and the fact that's outside of a major media market and isn't getting noticed in the way that it should.
"It's neglected, and I feel that if people knew, they'd be lined up 150,000-deep to help New Orleans.
"We've clearly done a horrible job of explaining it to them. Or the politicians have twisted the message.
"It just seems to have set my part of the world back so far, and I don't believe that people don't care. I will not believe that. I know better.
"So that just says to me that they don't know and that has to be partly my fault.
The Dave Walker piece calls Shep "the template for a next-generation evening news anchor." Hear, hear--and hopefully for this generation.
