Thursday on Fox News Channel’s “Shepard Smith Reporting,” after reporting on CNN network White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins being uninvited to a Rose Garden event yesterday, host Shepard Smith went into an editorial about the American press.

After playing a clip of President Donald Trump calling the press the “enemy of the people,” Smith said, “For those of you at home, if I may, journalists are not the enemies of the people. It’s quite the opposite. Our profession is enshrined in the Constitution and the fourth estate holds the essential job of being your eyes and often ears and when appropriate, your voice. It’s a cornerstone of our republic. Over 22 years at this network, it has been my experience that the journalists of Fox News and Fox Business and those of our colleagues and competitors at CNN and MSNBC, NBC, ABC and CBS, Bloomberg and PBS, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Post,The New York Times, The Washington Post—all of them operate in the public interests. We work to discern what is truth, then to present it to you in context and with perspective. As your representatives in the people’s halls, report to you without fear or favor while striving to hold those in power to the same standards. This is the foundation of what we do.”

He continued, “It’s our reason for being, our purpose. Please know this, I acknowledge many thousands of your complaints and protestations and in doing so, I offer this. Never have I personally misrepresented the truth to you. Our reports are checked and rechecked and approved at the editorial management level of this network. In the event I make a mistake, I correct it in a timely and appropriate manner. As an aside, when the president attacks journalists, we question his motivation and try to discover the underlying reason. For historically, those who regularly and as a matter of pattern attack the messenger, who degrade and belittle the purveyors of truth and work to diminish the free press, often find the facts displeasing and endeavor to keep you from knowing them. We are on guard. And we hope, politics aside for the greater good, that you are, too.”

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