Latest / The Mark Simone Show / Mark interviews Fox News reporter Eric Shawn.

Transcript

Mark interviews Fox News reporter Eric Shawn. · The Mark Simone Show

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Hey, it's the 30th anniversary of Fox News today. Now,
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: this is hard to believe because it's the biggest number
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: one cable news network. But in the beginning, it was little, tiny,
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: nobody knew it. It was an amazing success story. Very
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: few people there on day one. that are still there,
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: but we've got my friend, my old friend, Eric Sean,
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: great anchor, reporter, senior correspondent for Fox News. He's been
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: there since day one. Eric Sean, how you doing?
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: Hey, Mark. Good to talk to you. We go way
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: back to the early 90s. It's great to talk to you.
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: And always see you, of course. Yeah.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: Now, before Fox News, I'm trying to remember, you were
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: Channel 5, right? The local Fox.
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: Yes. Channel 11 in the 80s, went to Channel 5
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: in 1989. And in 1990, Mr. Murdoch decided to start
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: a national coverage for all our Fox stations, including Channel 5.
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: So when you say it's just like one, it was me.
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: It was me and a cameraman. And that was it.
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: And all you need is that and you plug into
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: a satellite truck somewhere and we traveled all over the world.
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: And then in 1996, I was covering the O.J. Simpson trial.
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: for all the Fox stations and the network. And that
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: is when we started the Fox News Channel.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: So back then, the only thing that was big on
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: cable was CNN. And then Rupert Murdoch, visionary, decides to
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: start Fox News. And when you tell us about the
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: very beginning, like the first days, it was like a
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: small staff, right? It was kind of primitive back then,
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: wasn't it?
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: Oh, man, it was like Dixie Cups and String. Of course,
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: we had people who knew the business. I'd been at
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: Channel 11 and Channel 5 for a long time at
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: that point. But you couldn't see it in New York.
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: I don't know if you remember. We started, and it
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: was not on the cable systems. Mayor Giuliani was a
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: big proponent of doing that. So when we started... I
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: was actually the first day in Jerusalem because the day
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: before on that Sunday, October 6th, they realized we have
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: a Jerusalem bureau, but there's no reporter. So I flew.
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: You got to do something. So I flew that night,
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: and my first live shot was from Jerusalem. And that day,
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: there was an earthquake while we were alive on the air,
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: and the building kind of swayed while we were alive
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: on the air. And I like to say, I think
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: that Fox News started an earthquake in the media business
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: after that. And then, you know, remember Sam Goody's?
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: Of course, Sam Goody's, the record store.
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Sam Goody's, the record store. And that then became
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: the first studio. And it was, you know, very small.
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: And then it just exploded beyond what we have today.
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: I was made fun of by the networks. I went
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: one time onto the White House pool to feed some videotape.
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: And they said, who are you? And I said, I'm
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: Eric Schoen from, where are you from? I said, well, Fox.
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: And they were like, Fox doesn't have a news. You know, hey,
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: Bart Simpson is here. Hey, you look like Homer. You
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: don't look like Homer. Oh, they would bust my chops, Mark.
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: But I think at the end, we had the last laugh.
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: So the first week of Fox News, what was on?
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: I remember there was Hannity, right? Hannity and Combs.
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: Hannity and Combs. And they did a lot of, they
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: did the news. And then there are all these programs
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: called Fox On. Like Fox On, you know, politics. Fox On,
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: foreign affairs. My favorite was Fox On Pets. I think
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: we've got to bring Fox on Pets back. But it
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: just evolved. And it's what it is.
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: In the beginning, Bill O'Reilly was on? Bill was on.
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: I had known Bill from Channel 11. He was on
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: Picks for a very short time. And Bill O'Reilly, Hannity
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: and Combs, of course, Catherine Cryer had come from ABC,
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: had a show. Mike Schneider, who had been an ABC anchor,
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: he was the anchor of the Schneider Report, which then
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: became Fox Report, which then became, you know, with Shepard Smith.
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: It kind of just all evolved, you know, Steve Doocy
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: on Fox and Friends in the morning. And it just
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: kind of evolved to what we have obviously today and
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: have had the past number of decades.
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: And what was Roger Ailes telling you guys back then?
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: He was like a genius programming consultant. What did he
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: tell you?
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: He really was. Just go do it. Be yourself. Just
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: go do it. And I think that's one of our secrets.
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: You think of why did it catch on? I think
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: because we are the audience. We're not pontificating. We're not
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: talking down to people. It's just us. And I think
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: that energy comes is on the air. I also think
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: the soul, you know, of like the New York Post,
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: what was News Corp at the time, it's, we're renegades.
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: We're like pirates, underdogs. I think that we still have
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: that same spirit today, that scrappy, I like to call
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: it the scrappy New York spirit that we still have.
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: And I think that is really the soul of the
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: DNA of the company. And all these years later, even
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: though we've become number one, I still think we have that.
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: And you know what? We like each other. We all
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: like each other, which I've heard is different. It can
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: be different from other places.
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah, definitely. Hey, Eric, Sean is like the original
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: Fox News guy. So if you go to Fox News now,
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: it's a major operation. It's an enormous operation. Millions of
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: people are there. Back in the beginning, it was just
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: a handful of people, right? Were you a little short
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: of crew and all that?
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we'd go to a story, and CNN would have
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: like 15 people. 20 people.
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: I'd have four.
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: It'd be me, a producer, a cameraman, and the satellite
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: truck operator who maybe we rent. You rent the satellite truck,
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: you plug in, and that's how you go live. And
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: the young producers would say, oh my God, CNS has
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: so many people. And I'd say, no, no, no. We
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: have the attitude. We have a spirit. We have an attitude,
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: I think, that is special. And I think that as
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: long as we should never lose that, I think that's
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: one of the secrets of what we've come. And now
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: we have You know, there's Fox Radio, there's Fox.com, Fox Nation,
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: the streaming service. I have shows on that now, the
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: Jimmy Hoffa series, a whole range of programs. And that
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: streaming is huge, and that's become a whole other new
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: frontier for the company.
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: Hey, by the way, Eric Sean is like a Jimmy
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: Hoffa expert. Now, I would assume Jimmy Hoffa, they just
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: cremated him. The body's not anyplace. Didn't they just cremate him?
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: I'm sorry to say that. He's not buried in New Jersey.
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: Part of our show, our series, Riddle, The Search for
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: James R. Hoffa, we went out to the Moscato's Dump
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: in Jersey City under the Pulaski Skyway. I think it
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: was a very simple mob hit. If you watch our series,
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: I sat down with James P. Hoffa, Hoffa's son, former
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: president of the Teamsters himself, and I think it was
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: just a simple mob hit. Vito Giacalone, Billy Jack, part
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: of the Detroit mob, picks him up at the restaurant
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: with another guy. I think it was Tony Powell, Tony Palazzolo,
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: taking him to the house. And just like in Goodfellas. Oh,
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: the Irishman. No, I'm talking about like a hit in Goodfellas. Oh, yeah.
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: When he walks in and Pesci walks in and thinks
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: he's going to have a meeting. And I think it
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: was very simple. And all of this, you know, came
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: out of Gabriel Guglio. Gabe was the final last suspect
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: in New Jersey. He had nothing to do with it.
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: I just think it was all part of Detroit. And
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: that's all part of our series and what we did
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: in that show.
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: All right, but these guys driving around, where's the body?
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: It's under Giants Stadium. It's in the middle. They just
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: either cremated him or chopped him up like a... The
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: Sopranos doing the meat packing plant, something like that.
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there was actually a paper packaging type plant that
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: crushed all this stuff. And truly, one of the mob
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: guys went there that night. You can put these little
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: pieces together to think, I think that's probably what happened.
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: But I'm open and I'm still open and we're still
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: open and I've got another new tip now. So we
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: may continue.
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: You should watch Fox Nation. It's their streaming service. And
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: Eric Schoen has a lot of good stuff on Fox Nation.
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we have a whole mob series where I sit
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: down with former mob guys. And Lou Ferrante, who was
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: hijacked with the Gambino family. And then we interviewed Lou Kasman.
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: If you remember, it was called Gotti's Guy. He's a
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: very controversial figure. The Gotti family hates him. I understand that.
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: but it's a whole series and we just debuted Stories
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: of American Mafia. This third season is on Fox Nation now.
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: That went up this week. Wow.
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: All right. We're going to have to have you back.
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: People are fascinated with that.
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: We're going to have to have you back just to
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: do mob stuff because he's great on this. But the
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: point of all this was Fox News 30th anniversary. Did
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: you ever think you'd be there 30 years later?
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: Oh, I can't believe it. And it's gone by in
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: a flash, you know. Wow. It just really has. Thank you, Mark.
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: I want to thank the viewers and everyone for their support.
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: That's creates our success. Wow.
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: Eric, Sean, great work. Keep it up and we'll talk
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: again soon. Thanks for being with us.
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: All right, Mark. Of course. All right.
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: Take care. Fox News, 30 years old today. Hey, that
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: Fox Nation, that's their streaming service. Sign up for that.
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: Fox Nation. He's got all these great mob specials. Oh,
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: there's a Sinatra documentary on there. It's called Echoes of
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: an Icon. It's one of the best Sinatra documentaries. I'm
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: on it. That's not why it's the best. It's really good.
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: But a lot of stuff on Fox Nation. And of course,
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: Fox News, the number one cable news network, 30 years.
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: It's Mark Simone here on 710WOR.