Mississippi Legends: Shepard Smith

• Smith bemoans the present-day version of around-the-clock opinion and panel discussions that monopolize news network programming.

Holly Springs native and celebrity news anchor, reporter, and journalist Shepard Smith spent a summer managing the drive-thru at a Hardee’s fast-food franchise in Destin.

“I could make that drive-thru sing,” he says.

So impressive was his twelve-second execution from customer’s order to delivery at the window that Hardee’s corporate leadership sent a team down to observe his method. Shep thought seriously about accepting their invitation to manage his own Hardee’s right down the beach, but to his mother’s relief, he returned to college.

Once the country’s highest-paid cable news network anchor, a journalist who covered every major story from the death of Princess Diana in 1997 to Hurricane Katrina in 2005 to Ground Zero during 9/11 to present-day wars around the globe, Shep calls his time at Hardee’s “one of the most important things I ever did.” 

Lessons learned in food service fueled Smith in news

He learned about little things that could make or break a business. Two napkins instead of three, one ketchup packet instead of three per burger; details mattered because, “If you keep doing the little things wrong, you’re going to go broke.”

That same philosophy and meticulous drive for excellence defined his journalistic career for almost forty years. In more than one speech to journalism students at his beloved Ole Miss alma mater, he reiterated his mission: “Seek the truth, find the truth, and tell the truth.”

Shep bemoans the present-day version of around-the-clock opinion and panel discussions that monopolize news network programming. He is old school. In his mind, the contemporary model destroys the essence of trustworthy journalism.

He states firmly, “Journalism is not about emotion or persuasion or opinion. Journalism is about gathering information and reporting facts.” Please leave it to the viewers to form their own opinions. That is the Shepard Smith preferred rule.

Smith’s journey to journalism

On August 18, 1977, Shep was a skinny thirteen-year-old sitting on the floor of his home on Randolph Street, eyes glued to the family television set and the live broadcast of Elvis Presley’s funeral. NBC’s Memphis affiliate, WMC-TV, had just acquired a mini-cam, and Shep was fascinated by the technology. The lure of being in the middle of the action and telling an audience the unfolding story in real time grabbed his imagination, and it never let go.

He snagged an after-school job at the Holly Springs local radio station and became the ace reporter for Marshall Academy’s school newspaper. Even there, Shep loved finding out things, putting the story in context, giving it some perspective, and tossing it back at people. After graduation in 1982, he headed down Highway 7 to Ole Miss, his mom’s and dad’s alma mater, and the campus he had visited more times than he could count. David Shepard Smith, Sr. loaded up his family in the station wagon and spread a tailgate in the Grove for years when tailgating was literal. Shep had never considered going to college anywhere but Ole Miss. He was a Rebel by birth, and he will be a Rebel when he draws his last breath.

Ole Miss’s journalism department had added broadcasting to its curriculum just a few years prior by hiring Dr. Jim Pratt, who had a forty-year career with CBS before moving to Oxford and becoming an innovator in Ole Miss’s journalism school. The advent of cable news was transforming the entire concept of journalism. Dr. Will Norton, former dean of the Journalism Department, fondly recalled the “young, energetic guy carrying equipment around everywhere, thinking he could make a difference in the world.”

Outside-the-box reporting was Smith’s springboard

Shep stood apart from the crowd. He had a commitment and a sixth sense when it came to getting a story, telling the story, and bringing all the components together in a riveting way. Those two professors and mentors lamented at great length when their promising student decided to leave school six hours shy of graduation to take a field reporting job with a television station in Panama City. Dr. Norton predicted, “He will never amount to anything.”

Shep never aspired to sit in an anchor chair anywhere. He confesses that he wanted to be “the ambulance chaser,” the one on the scene watching the story unfold. His passion is reporting and discovering the story inside the story. He never once yearned to be stuck inside the studio’s four walls.

In 1991, he worked in Orlando for a failing CBS affiliate, WCPX. The other stations in that market had about five reporters to everyone that WCPX had.

Shep intuitively learned, by necessity, to think outside the box. The station manager let him try different things, and it was there he accidentally discovered his voice and his storytelling style.

His first story at WCPX was covering the filming of Lethal Weapon 3. The opening scene called for a building demolition in downtown. Warner Brothers agreed to pay $50,000 to the city for the privilege of taking down their old vacant City Hall, which stood less than twenty feet from their new City Hall in the heart of Orlando.

The media hyped the story for weeks. “It looked kind of stupid to me,” Shep said. He was determined to go down there on the night of the scheduled demolition and try to observe something everyone else was not covering. He had no idea until he got there what his slant would be.

“First of all, I got there and everyone strolling around down there had an animal. Dogs of every size. Big dogs, little dogs, dogs on leashes, dogs running everywhere. Little children in strollers.”

He took limitless footage of the crowd, especially the dogs, returned to the station and put music to his video. There was positive feedback everywhere. People talked about that story for years.

The station with the lowest ratings surpassed its competition that time.

Life after the limelight and love for Mississippi

The experience was a teachable moment for Shep, and he has repeatedly shared it with journalism students. “You don’t have to have the biggest story in the world. You don’t have to parachute into Lebanon for a war. You get noticed every single day by the work you do day in and day out.”

And, by the way, when a story is light-hearted, tell it just that way. The news does not always have to be dire, gloom, and doom. He believes, “We ought to be able to offer them [the audience] some degree of hope and happiness.”

Shep became a New York City resident in 1996 when he joined the brand new Fox News as a general assignment reporter and rose through the ranks to become their chief anchor and manager of their breaking news division. He left Fox in 2019 and joined CNBC, serving as chief news anchor and hosting a straight news evening show for two years.

As a retiree, Shep and his partner live in New York City. They travel, go to shows, enjoy the restaurants, and take each day at their own pace. It is not unusual to find him in Oxford, where he continues to be an avid fan and ambassador of all things Ole Miss.

One of his favorite things is introducing his friends to the small-town Mississippi culture he calls “classically Southern.” Oxford and Ole Miss are, of all places on earth, the ones he loves best.

Unlike many homegrown celebrities who make it big in the world and denounce their roots, Shepard celebrates his. During his most significant career highs, he never thought, “Oh, I’m somebody because I got away from Mississippi.” Instead, his reflection was, “I’m something because of the foundations I got here — like Mom and Dad and home. Mississippi people get that in ways other people don’t.”