Brit Hume
Encyclopedia
Brit Hume is an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 television journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...

 and political commentator.
For twenty years he was a correspondent
Correspondent
A correspondent or on-the-scene reporter is a journalist or commentator, or more general speaking, an agent who contributes reports to a newspaper, or radio or television news, or another type of company, from a remote, often distant, location. A foreign correspondent is stationed in a foreign...

 for the American Broadcasting Company
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...

, including Chief White House
White House
The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...

 Correspondent. He then spent ten years as the Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....

 managing editor
Managing editor
A managing editor is a senior member of a publication's management team.In the United States, a managing editor oversees and coordinates the publication's editorial activities...

 of the Fox News Channel
Fox News Channel
Fox News Channel , often called Fox News, is a cable and satellite television news channel owned by the Fox Entertainment Group, a subsidiary of News Corporation...

 and the anchor of Special Report with Brit Hume
Special Report with Brit Hume
Special Report with Bret Baier is an American television news and political commentary program appearing on Fox News Channel, currently hosted by Bret Baier. It airs live each Monday through Friday at 6:00pm ET. The show focuses on both reporting and analysis of the day's events, with a primary...

. Since 2008, he has been the senior political analyst for Fox News and a regular public affairs
Public affairs (broadcasting)
Public affairs, a broadcasting industry term, refers to television programs which focuses on matters of politics and public policy. Among commercial broadcasters, such programs are often only to satisfy Federal Communications Commission regulatory expectations and are not scheduled in prime time...

 panelist on Fox News Sunday
Fox News Sunday
Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace is a public affairs program on the Fox network, hosted by Chris Wallace and airing on Sunday mornings. The show began on April 28, 1996, which predated the launch of Fox News Channel, and usually talks about items similar to Sunday morning talk shows...

.

Early life

Brit Hume was born Alexander Britton Hume in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....

, the son of Virginia Powell (née
Married and maiden names
A married name is the family name adopted by a person upon marriage. When a person assumes the family name of her spouse, the new name replaces the maiden name....

Minnigerode) Hume and George Graham Hume. He attended St. Albans School
St. Albans School (Washington, D.C.)
St. Albans School is an independent college preparatory school for boys in grades 4–12, located in Washington, D.C. The school is named after Saint Alban, traditionally regarded as the first British martyr. Within the St...

 at the same time as Al Gore
Al Gore
Albert Arnold "Al" Gore, Jr. served as the 45th Vice President of the United States , under President Bill Clinton. He was the Democratic Party's nominee for President in the 2000 U.S. presidential election....

 and graduated from the University of Virginia
University of Virginia
The University of Virginia is a public research university located in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States, founded by Thomas Jefferson...

 in Charlottesville
Charlottesville, Virginia
Charlottesville is an independent city geographically surrounded by but separate from Albemarle County in the Commonwealth of Virginia, United States, and named after Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, the queen consort of King George III of the United Kingdom.The official population estimate for...

, Virginia
Virginia
The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...

, with a Bachelor of Arts
Bachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...

 in English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

 in 1965.

Career

Hume first worked for The Hartford Times
The Hartford Times
The Hartford Times was a daily afternoon newspaper serving the Hartford, Connecticut community from 1826 to 1976. Several accomplished individuals contributed to the newspaper, including Brit Hume, as a reporter; the television writer Robert Palm; the American painter, James Britton, employed as a...

, and later for United Press International and the Baltimore Evening Sun. He then worked for syndicated columnist Jack Anderson from 1970 to 1972, and later for Richard Pollak, founding editor of [MORE] (a monthly media review published in the 1970s), as a Washington Editor during the mid-1970s.

Hume reported a story for Anderson's "Washington Merry-Go-Round" column that after ITT Corporation
ITT Corporation
ITT Corporation is a global diversified manufacturing company based in the United States. ITT participates in global markets including water and fluids management, defense and security, and motion and flow control...

 had contributed $400,000 to the 1972 Republican National Convention
1972 Republican National Convention
The 1972 National Convention of the Republican Party of the United States was held from August 21 to August 23, 1972 at the Miami Beach Convention Center in Miami Beach, Florida. It nominated the incumbents Richard M. Nixon of California for President and Spiro T. Agnew of Maryland for Vice...

 the Nixon
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...

 Department of Justice
United States Department of Justice
The United States Department of Justice , is the United States federal executive department responsible for the enforcement of the law and administration of justice, equivalent to the justice or interior ministries of other countries.The Department is led by the Attorney General, who is nominated...

 had settled the antitrust
Antitrust
The United States antitrust law is a body of laws that prohibits anti-competitive behavior and unfair business practices. Antitrust laws are intended to encourage competition in the marketplace. These competition laws make illegal certain practices deemed to hurt businesses or consumers or both,...

 case against ITT. Anderson published a series of classified documents indicating the Nixon administration, contrary to its public pronouncements, had tilted in favor of Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...

 during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971
Indo-Pakistani War of 1971
The Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 was a military conflict between India and Pakistan. Indian, Bangladeshi and international sources consider the beginning of the war to be Operation Chengiz Khan, Pakistan's December 3, 1971 pre-emptive strike on 11 Indian airbases...

. After those revelations, Anderson and his staff, including Hume and his family were briefly under surveillance by the Central Intelligence Agency
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...

 in 1972. The agents code-named Hume "eggnog" and observed his family going about their daily business. These documents
Family Jewels (Central Intelligence Agency)
The Family Jewels is the informal name used to refer to a set of reports that detail activities conducted by the United States Central Intelligence Agency. Considered illegal or inappropriate, these actions were conducted over the span of decades, from the 1950s to the mid-1970s...

 came to light during the Ford
Gerald Ford
Gerald Rudolph "Jerry" Ford, Jr. was the 38th President of the United States, serving from 1974 to 1977, and the 40th Vice President of the United States serving from 1973 to 1974...

 administration during Congressional hearings, and more recently as the result of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit and the so-called 'Family Jewels
Family Jewels (Central Intelligence Agency)
The Family Jewels is the informal name used to refer to a set of reports that detail activities conducted by the United States Central Intelligence Agency. Considered illegal or inappropriate, these actions were conducted over the span of decades, from the 1950s to the mid-1970s...

' revelations.

Hume started working for ABC News
ABC News
ABC News is the news gathering and broadcasting division of American broadcast television network ABC, a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company...

 in 1973 as a consultant and in 1976 was offered a job as a correspondent, covering the House
United States House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives is one of the two Houses of the United States Congress, the bicameral legislature which also includes the Senate.The composition and powers of the House are established in Article One of the Constitution...

 for 11 years. He was assigned to cover Walter Mondale
Walter Mondale
Walter Frederick "Fritz" Mondale is an American Democratic Party politician, who served as the 42nd Vice President of the United States , under President Jimmy Carter, and as a United States Senator for Minnesota...

's presidential campaign in 1984
United States presidential election, 1984
The United States presidential election of 1984 was a contest between the incumbent President Ronald Reagan, the Republican candidate, and former Vice President Walter Mondale, the Democratic candidate. Reagan was helped by a strong economic recovery from the deep recession of 1981–1982...

 and Vice President
Vice President of the United States
The Vice President of the United States is the holder of a public office created by the United States Constitution. The Vice President, together with the President of the United States, is indirectly elected by the people, through the Electoral College, to a four-year term...

 George H.W. Bush's 1988
United States presidential election, 1988
The United States presidential election of 1988 featured no incumbent president, as President Ronald Reagan was unable to seek re-election after serving the maximum two terms allowed by the Twenty-second Amendment. Reagan's Vice President, George H. W. Bush, won the Republican nomination, while the...

 presidential campaign. In 1989, he became ABC's chief White House
White House
The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...

 correspondent, covering the administrations of Bush and Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...

 and working closely with Peter Jennings
Peter Jennings
Peter Charles Archibald Ewart Jennings, CM was a Canadian American journalist and news anchor. He was the sole anchor of ABC's World News Tonight from 1983 until his death in 2005 of complications from lung cancer...

 and Charlie Gibson.

In January 1997, he left ABC for Fox News, where his wife had recently become the chief of the network's Washington bureau. At his last news conference as ABC's chief White House correspondent, President Clinton told him, "I think all of us think you have done an extraordinary, professional job under Republican and Democratic administrations alike." Hume became Fox News's Washington managing editor and was in discussions about starting a Washington-based news show in the 6 p.m. timeslot. The Lewinsky scandal
Lewinsky scandal
The Lewinsky scandal was a political sex scandal emerging in 1998 from a sexual relationship between United States President Bill Clinton and a 25-year-old White House intern, Monica Lewinsky. The news of this extra-marital affair and the resulting investigation eventually led to the impeachment of...

 broke in January 1998, and Hume's wife told him the story was so hot that he should start the show immediately; Special Report with Brit Hume was launched that evening.

On December 16, 2008, Hume appeared as a guest on The O'Reilly Factor
The O'Reilly Factor
The O'Reilly Factor, originally titled The O'Reilly Report from 1996 to 1998 and often called The Factor, is an American talk show on the Fox News Channel hosted by commentator Bill O'Reilly, who often discusses current controversial political issues with guests.The program was the most watched...

and announced his retirement from the anchor position. When asked how he would spend his time in retirement, Hume stated "Three Gs: God, granddaughters and golf."

On December 23, 2008, he hosted his final episode as anchor of Special Report, announcing that Bret Baier
Bret Baier
Bret Baier is an American journalist and the host of Special Report with Bret Baier on Fox News Channel. He previously worked as the network's Chief White House Correspondent and Pentagon correspondent.-Career:...

, then the chief White House
White House
The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...

 correspondent for Fox News, would be his replacement. Hume also announced that he would remain with Fox News as a senior political analyst and regular panelist on Fox News Sunday
Fox News Sunday
Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace is a public affairs program on the Fox network, hosted by Chris Wallace and airing on Sunday mornings. The show began on April 28, 1996, which predated the launch of Fox News Channel, and usually talks about items similar to Sunday morning talk shows...

.

Remarks on Tiger Woods

On January 3, 2010, as a guest commentator on Fox News Sunday Hume advised Tiger Woods
Tiger Woods
Eldrick Tont "Tiger" Woods is an American professional golfer whose achievements to date rank him among the most successful golfers of all time. Formerly the World No...

 to convert
Conversion to Christianity
Conversion to Christianity is the religious conversion of a previously non-Christian person to some form of Christianity. It has been called the foundational experience of Christian life...

 to Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...

. Hume's comments came in the wake of the revelation of Woods' habitual adultery and the resulting deterioration of his relationship with his family. Hume stated on the show that:

Tiger Woods will recover as a golfer. Whether he can recover as a person I think is a very open question, and it's a tragic situation for him. I think he's lost his family, it's not clear to me if he'll be able to have a relationship with his children, but the Tiger Woods that emerges once the news value dies out of this scandal – the extent to which he can recover – seems to me to depend on his faith. He's said to be a Buddhist; I don't think that faith offers the kind of forgiveness and redemption that is offered by the Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...

 faith. So my message to Tiger would be, 'Tiger, turn to the Christian faith and you can make a total recovery and be a great example to the world.'


Hume reiterated his remarks the following day on The O'Reilly Factor
The O'Reilly Factor
The O'Reilly Factor, originally titled The O'Reilly Report from 1996 to 1998 and often called The Factor, is an American talk show on the Fox News Channel hosted by commentator Bill O'Reilly, who often discusses current controversial political issues with guests.The program was the most watched...

with Bill O'Reilly
Bill O'Reilly (political commentator)
William James "Bill" O'Reilly, Jr. is an American television host, author, syndicated columnist and political commentator. He is the host of the political commentary program The O'Reilly Factor on the Fox News Channel, which is the most watched cable news television program on American television...

. Hume insisted to O'Reilly that he never meant to insult Buddhism, and stated that:

I was really meaning to say in those comments yesterday more about Christianity than I was about anything else. I mentioned the Buddhism
Buddhism
Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...

 only because his mother is a Buddhist and he has apparently said that he is a Buddhist. I’m not sure how seriously he practices that.


This explanation also drew criticism from his original critics as having been trying to defend his previous actions. Hume gave reason for his strong feelings on Christianity in an interview where he explained how he committed his life to Jesus Christ "in a way that was very meaningful" to him in the aftermath of his son's death by suicide in 1998.

Political beliefs

Regarding his political beliefs, in 2006 Hume said, "Sure, I'm a conservative, no doubt about it. But I would ask people to look at the work." In accepting the William F. Buckley, Jr.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
William Frank Buckley, Jr. was an American conservative author and commentator. He founded the political magazine National Review in 1955, hosted 1,429 episodes of the television show Firing Line from 1966 until 1999, and was a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist. His writing was noted for...

 Award for Media Excellence from the conservative Media Research Center
Media Research Center
The Media Research Center is a content analysis organization based in Alexandria, Virginia, founded in 1987 by conservative activist L. Brent Bozell III...

, he expressed his gratitude for
the tremendous amount of material that the Media Research Center provided me for so many years when I was anchoring Special Report. I don't know what we would have done without them. It was a daily, sort of a buffet of material to work from, and we – we – we certainly made tremendous use of it.

Personal life and religious views

Previously married to and divorced from Clare Jacobs Stoner, Hume is married to Kim Schiller Hume, Fox News vice president and former Washington bureau chief.

His son Washington journalist Sandy Hume
Sandy Hume
Sandy Hume, born Alexander Britton Hume Jr., , was an American journalist. A journalist for The Hill newspaper in Washington, D.C., Hume was the son of Brit Hume, then Fox News Channel's managing editor, and Clare Jacobs Stoner.- Career :Hume broke the story of the aborted 1997 coup by Rep...

 was a reporter for The Hill
The Hill (newspaper)
The Hill, a subsidiary of News Communications Inc., is a newspaper published in Washington, D.C. since 1994.Its first editor was Martin Tolchin, a veteran correspondent in the Washington bureau of The New York Times....

and broke the story of the aborted 1997 coup against Speaker of the House
Speaker of the United States House of Representatives
The Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, or Speaker of the House, is the presiding officer of the United States House of Representatives...

 Newt Gingrich
Newt Gingrich
Newton Leroy "Newt" Gingrich is a U.S. Republican Party politician who served as the House Minority Whip from 1989 to 1995 and as the 58th Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 1999....

. In February 1998, Sandy Hume committed suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...

. The National Press Club honors his memory with its annual Sandy Hume Memorial Award for Excellence in Political Journalism. Over a decade later, upon his 2008 departure from Special Report, Hume commented on part of the impact of his son's death:
"I want to pursue my faith more ardently than I have done. I'm not claiming it's impossible to do when you work in this business. I was kind of a nominal Christian for the longest time. When my son died, I came to Christ in a way that was very meaningful to me. If a person is a Christian and tries to face up to the implications of what you say you believe, it's a pretty big thing. If you do it part time, you're not really living it."

Awards

Hume is the recipient of several awards including:
  • Sol Taishoff Award for Excellence in Broadcast Journalist (2003)
  • Emmy Award
    Emmy Award
    An Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...

     for coverage of the Gulf War
    Gulf War
    The Persian Gulf War , commonly referred to as simply the Gulf War, was a war waged by a U.N.-authorized coalition force from 34 nations led by the United States, against Iraq in response to Iraq's invasion and annexation of Kuwait.The war is also known under other names, such as the First Gulf...

     (1991)
  • American Journalism Review
    American Journalism Review
    The American Journalism Review is a U.S. magazine covering topics in journalism. It is published six times a year by the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland, College Park. The AJR has been owned since the late 1980s by a foundation of the university...

     "Best in the Business" award (twice) for White House coverage

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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