Brit Hume (born June 22, 1943) is the conservative Washington, D.C. managing editor of the Fox News Channel. He anchors Special Report with Brit Hume and is a panelist on Fox News Sunday, which is broadcast on Fox Network television stations.

Career

Hume was born in Washington, D.C., where he attended St. Albans School. He obtained a student deferment from the Vietnam War draft, and in 1965 graduated from the University of Virginia. Hume first worked for the now-defunct Hartford Times, and later for United Press International and the Baltimore Evening Sun. From 1970 to 1972, Hume worked for the syndicated columnist Jack Anderson.

Prior to joining the Fox News Channel, Hume worked for 23 years at ABC News. He was chief White House correspondent from 1987 through 1996. Hume joined ABC in 1973 as a consultant for the network's documentary division and was named a Washington correspondent in 1976. He was later promoted to Capitol Hill correspondent and reported on Congress until 1988. Hume became ABC News' Chief White House Correspondent in 1989, where he held until his departure in 1996 to join FOX News. In 1991 Hume won an Emmy Award for his Gulf War coverage. He was also twice named "Best in the Business" as a White House correspondent by the American Journalism Review. During his time at ABC, Hume worked on programs that included World News Tonight With Peter Jennings, Nightline and This Week.

Hume has published two books: His 1971 work, Death and the Mines: Rebellion and Murder in the United Mine Workers and the 1976 Inside Story, a memoir of his Jack Anderson days. Hume has contributed to such publications as Harper's, The Atlantic, The New Republic and The Weekly Standard.

As a reporter for Anderson's column, Hume uncovered an internal corporate memo indicating that the 1971 Republican National Convention had been underwritten by ITT and that in exchange an antitrust case had been dropped by the Richard Nixon administration shortly thereafter. Later Anderson published a series classified documents indicating the Nixon administration, contrary to its public pronouncements, had tipped in favor of Pakistan during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971. After those revelations Anderson and his staff, including Hume and his wife and children, were placed under surveillance by the CIA. The agents codenamed Hume "Eggnog" and observed he and his family going about their daily business. This came to light during the Gerald Ford administration in congressional hearings, and as the result of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.

Hume is married to Rhoda Kim Schiller Hume, Fox News' vice president and Washington bureau chief. Prior to joining Fox in 1995, she worked for 14 years at ABC News, where she was a producer for World News Tonight and This Week with David Brinkley. Brit and Kim Hume reside in Washington, DC.

Brit Hume's son, Washington journalist Sandy Hume was a reporter for The Hill newspaper. Sandy Hume broke the story of the aborted 1997 coup against House Speaker Newt Gingrich. In February 1998 Sandy Hume committed suicide with a hunting rifle. Upon his death, it was reported that Sandy had gotten his information about the coup plot through his relationship with Rep. Bill Paxon. The National Press Club honors his memory with the annual Sandy Hume Memorial Award for Excellence in Political Journalism.

2004 Broadcaster of the Year award

In 2004 the National Press Foundation presented its Broadcaster of the Year Award to Hume ^[1]. The award generated some controversy ^[2]. Geneva Overholser, head of the University of Missouri's Washington journalism program, resigned from the Foundation's board in protest. She accused Hume of practicing "ideologically connected journalism" and said he did not deserve the award ^{[3] [4]}.

China, Terror and Todd Ouellette

In 1995, Brit Hume used his position in the White House Press Corps to ask questions about why President Clinton refused to accept 2 petitions from a daily demonstrator named Todd Ouellette. Clinton eventually met with Ouellette and accepted the petitions. When Ouellette left the west wing exit, the press corps (including Brian Williams, Wolf Blitzer, Wendall Goler and Bill Plante) were waiting to interview Ouellette. Ouellette made several comments about Clinton's illegal weapon sales to China. Ouellette stated that he believed America would be at war "shortly after the year 2000" due to China's animosity towards the U.S. and that "when they start filling the body bags, don't say I didn't warn ya'." Brit subsequently mentioned Ouellette in that night's (March 25, 1995) ABC news report. The report made no comment about the illegal weapon sales to China and, made it look as if Clinton had done Ouellette a favor by accepting the petitions about the POW/MIA issue.

Ouellette had spent 15 months at the White House demonstrating torture and punishment positions used against U.S. POWs in W.W. II, Korea and Vietnam. In the months prior to the 1996 elections, Ouellette returned to demonstrate at the White House, in opposition to weapon sales to and from China. Ouellette was specifically trying to expose a loophole that allowed China to import assault rifles that were supposed to have been banned by the 1994 Assault Weapon Ban. Ouellette was also trying to expose illegal technology transfers to China in exchange for illegal campaign donations from the Chinese government. Hume refused to ask any questions on the matter during press conferences. Bill Plante (CBS) asked about the AK-47 imports during a White House press conference and eventually Clinton closed the loophole on 11/15/97. In, 1997, Ouellette tried to use his unique relationship with Brit Hume to expose GOP and Democratic party leaders who were breaking U.S. export laws and campaign finance laws. Brit refused to meet with Ouellette and an assistant threatened to call "security" if Ouellette did not leave.

In 1997, Ouellette tried to get around media censorship by producing a web site about weapon proliferation. It became the biggest website on the internet, regarding weapon proliferation, POW/MIAs and "terrorism."

In 1998, Chinese military officials published their yearly "White Paper" on military strategy. The paper detailed asymmetric warfare plans against the U.S., including the arming and financing of terrorist groups that oppose the United States. China went on to become the leading source of financing and weaponry for the Taliban.

During his reporting on the treatment of 'detainees' at Guantanamo, it was revealed that U.S. troops were using some of the same torture 'positions' that Ouellette had demonstrated to Brit Hume and the White House press corps in 1994, 1995 and 1996. Brit Hume never mentioned that these positions were considered "torture" by the U.S. during prior wars. He also has never commented on how he personally felt when he saw Ouellette endure the positions.

On Sept. 4 2001, Ouellette published warnings about impending terror attacks, on his website. Brit Hume has never reported on Ouellette's warnings.

While Ouellette is considered a top expert on weapon proliferation, POWs and terrorism, Brit Hume has never allowed Ouellette to appear on Fox News. Wikipedia members have repeatedly censored this entry in an effort to protect Brit Hume's reputation. Maybe Rupert Mudoch will reward them with a job at Fox 'News'?

Sources (Wash. Post, Wash. Times, AP, ABC News, CNN, Georgetown Univ. newspaper, St. Paul Pioneer Press, Bill Plante, Wendall Goler, Brian Williams, Rita Brever, and interviews with Todd Ouellette aired on public access TV channels around the U.S. including SPNN and MTN in Minnesota.)

Dick Cheney interview

On February 15, 2006, Hume gained an exclusive interview with Vice President Dick Cheney, the first time Cheney had spoken with any member of the media following a hunting accident in which Cheney shot a colleague, Harry Whittington, with a shotgun while hunting quail. (see: Dick Cheney hunting incident.)

The Washington Post reported February 15 that Hume had actively sought the interview, which the Washington Press corp had also been actively seeking. Hume's interview was quoted on rival cable news networks, which nevertheless heavily criticized Cheney's decision to seek out Hume alone for the interview. Hume's peers from the broadcast networks, including NBC's David Gregory, and the print media, including David Sanger from the New York Times, praised Hume for a job well done. For his part, Hume said he "felt the need to ask the questions my colleagues would want to ask." ^[5].

Hume was, however, criticized on this point by some members of the media ^[6]. In particular, he asked Cheney if he got the bird, a seemingly irrelevant question ^[7].

Controversies

War in Iraq

Hume has come under fire more recently from the political left for comments made on air, with the criticism led by Media Matters for America, an organization that critiques the press in search of conservative bias and bloopers. One such criticism concerned a comment on August 26, 2003, regarding the loss of life during the 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq:

277 U.S. soldiers have now died in Iraq, which means that statistically speaking, U.S. soldiers have less of a chance of dying from all causes in Iraq than citizens have of being murdered in California, which is roughly the same geographical size. The most recent statistics indicate California has more than 2300 homicides each year, which means about 6.6 murders each day. Meanwhile, U.S. troops have been in Iraq for 160 days, which means they're incurring about 1.7 deaths, including illness and accidents each day.

Opponents attacked the factual accuracy of Hume's statement, pointing out that while someone in California has a 1 in 5.2 million chance of being murdered every day, a soldier in Iraq has a 1 in 113,000 chance of dying every day—46 times as high a risk. ^{[citation needed]}

Hume has also been criticized for statements made on the March 28, 2004 edition of Fox News Sunday. During the show, Chris Wallace and Hume were discussing criticism of a joke made by President George W. Bush. The joke referred to the lack of weapons of mass destruction found after the invasion of Iraq:

Chris Wallace: "And one that got a big laugh in the room that day—and I must say, I still think it's funny—the day after, some Democrats and the families of some American soldiers in Iraq, some who died in Iraq, said they were offended by this kidding about the missing weapons of mass destruction. Brit?"

Brit Hume: "Well, we have a society in which one of the greatest things you can do is a platform to see victim status, and one of the qualifications for that is that you have these exquisitely tender feelings about things and sensibilities which are easily offended.

"And in America today, if your sensibilities are offended by something that has happened, you get an enormous amount of credibility and are taken very seriously.

"My own view of this is, the president's there poking fun at himself over what goes down, I think, as one of his failures. And I thought it was a good-natured performance, and it made him look good only in the sense that it showed he could poke fun at himself. But he certainly doesn't disguise the record on weapons of mass destruction.

And you have to feel like saying to people, 'Just get over it.'" ^{[citation needed]}

2004 presidential campaign

Hume was criticized for statements made on the June 2, 2004 "Grapevine" segment of Special Report with Brit Hume:

The Washington Post has reported that the Bush re-election campaign is using, quote, 'unprecedented negativity' against John Kerry. The Post says Kerry has so far aired only 13,300 ads in major media markets, while Bush-Cheney has aired more than 49,000. But the Post is only counting ads from the period since March 4, when the Bush-Cheney '04 team began its ad campaign. The Post fails to note that more than 15,300 negative ads that Kerry ran during the primary season, which means that Kerry ran nearly 29,000 negative ads, more than twice as many as the Post noted. ^[8].

The organization Media Matters for America took issue with Hume's statement:

Pushing back the start date of the Post's survey only emphasizes how much more negative Bush's campaign has been: Bush has run 71 percent more negative ads than has Kerry (49,000 negative ads from Bush versus 29,000 from Kerry) in one-third of the time (three months since March 4, 2004, versus nine months since Kerry ran his first negative ad on September 4, 2003). Indeed, if Bush had been running ads at his current pace since Kerry ran his first ad, his current negative ad total would be approximately 147,000 — 413 percent greater than Kerry's current total ^[9].

Washington Post ombudsman Michael Getler criticized ^[10] the Post as overstating the case when it called the level of negative advertising "unprecedented." Apart from this criticism, Getler praised the story as "a service to readers."

But Byron York, National Review White House correspondent published a detailed analysis ^[11] in support of a Bush campaign official's assertion that the Post story was "literally, point-by-point, factually wrong." However, he admits that, even with his modified total, "Kerry has run...less [negative ads] than the Bush campaign."

Social Security reform

On the February 3, 2005 edition of FOX News' Special Report with Brit Hume, Hume said that Franklin D. Roosevelt, the founder of Social Security, had proposed something similar to the privatized accounts proposed by President Bush:

Senate Democrats gathered at the Franklin Roosevelt Memorial today to invoke the image of FDR in calling on President Bush to remove private accounts from his Social Security proposal. But it turns out that FDR himself planned to include private investment accounts in the Social Security program when he proposed it.

In a written statement to Congress in 1935, Roosevelt said that any Social Security plans should include, quote, "Voluntary contributory annuities, by which individual initiative can increase the annual amounts received in old age," adding that government funding, quote, "ought to ultimately be supplanted by self-supporting annuity plans." ^{[12] [13] [14]}

Many groups and commentators, including Media Matters for America, accused Hume of distorting Roosevelt's views. Keith Olbermann of MSNBC said that Hume and Fox News were guilty of "premeditated, historical fraud." ^[15] Appearing on Olbermann's program, James Roosevelt, Jr.—grandson of the president, frequent Fox News critic and the head of an organization which opposes most Social Security changes. Additionally, Americans for Social Security ^[16] also accused Hume of "outrageous distortion" that "calls for a retraction, an apology, maybe even a resignation" ^[17].

But a research note ^[18] by the Social Security Administration shows that Hume was partly correct. The Social Security bill originally submitted by Roosevelt contained a provision for voluntary annuities whose main purpose was to cover persons not included in the compulsory system. These voluntary annuities, however, "could also be used by insured persons as a means of supplementing the old-age income provided under the compulsory plan." Although Congress removed this provision before final passage, it shows that FDR did support voluntary accounts to supplement payments made under the compulsory Social Security program. Unlike Bush, however, FDR did not intend for voluntary accounts to replace any part of the compulsory system. A lengthy analysis of these points by Hume's defenders and detractors can be found at INDC Journal^[19] .

See Also

• Special Report with Brit Hume

References

Additional References

• Bio on FoxNews.com
• Special Report w/Brit Hume on FoxNews.com
• The Most Biased Name in News (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting)
• Beltway Humor (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting)
• "Above All, Try Something" (John Fund, The Wall Street Journal)
• Media Matters collection for Brit Hume

External links

• Bio on FOXNews.com
• Special Report w/ Brit Hume on FOXNews.com