Fox News Channel’s Shepard Smith was at the Newseum last week for the kickoff of its special anniversary exhibit, “Covering Katrina”.
The Thursday reception included a tour of the exhibit, various video clips of the hurricane that slammed the Gulf Coast five years ago, followed by a live panel discussion with New Orleans Times-Picayune Editor Jim Amoss, Biloxi and Gulfport Sun Herald Editor Stan Tiner and the Studio B host himself.
Before viewing the clips, Smith told Yeas & Nays, “I don’t like to watch the towers fall, and I don’t like to watch New Orleans flooded. I don’t like it. I try to avoid it when I can.”
He described the devastation as “otherworldly,” and said while it is still hard for him to watch the coverage without getting emotional, he believes it is important to go back and look at it every now and then.
“If you are from that area, know that area, know someone from that area, or were there when it happened or have been back since it did, it is very, very real,” he said. “The smells come back, the sensations come back, the oppressive humidity with the lack of any services or air conditioning at all comes back. Mainly, the smell comes back.”
Of the 25 hurricanes Smith has covered, none can compare to Katrina.
“You know what to expect with hurricanes but you’ve never experienced such a Third World degradation, a lack of societal control, … no order and no services,” he said. “That sort of thing you never anticipate. We should have from the Hurricane Pam model, but you never do until you feel it and live it.”
We also talked to Smith about another emotional story — his colleague and friend Jennifer Griffin, who just returned to work last week a yearlong battle with breast cancer.
“Jennifer Griffin is amazing. Seventeen rounds of chemo and she came out looking terrific and is working her butt off again.”
Though he hasn’t seen her in person yet, he tells Yeas & Nays, “she likes to have dinners with a nice bottle of wine, talking the night away. So I am hoping we can do that soon.”
