Bret Baier says he’s doing things now at Fox News Channel that he simply couldn’t do when he joined the outlet in 1998. In recent days, Baier, who has placed more emphasis in recent months on securing exchanges with world leaders and newsmakers, snagged an on-camera interview with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian. On Wednesday evening, he is expected to talk to billionaire entrepreneur Jeff Bezos.
In the weeks leading up to the nation’s 2026 midterm elections, Baier will be traveling around the country, hoping to talk to Senate candidates from both parties. In the past, “we may not have attempted a lot of that” type of enterprise reporting, says Baier, during a recent interview of his own. Fox News has given news personnel like Peter Doocy and Jacqui Heinrich their own solo hours on weekends, and caps off its weekday schedule with a news hour led by Trace Gallagher.
Trey Yingst, a foreign correspondent, gets as much notice on social media as he does on Fox News’ linear platforms. Fox News is even drawing blue-state newsmakers like Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, who did an in-studio interview with anchor Martha MacCallum. On some nights, the network may even pre-empt the comedic stylings of Greg Gutfeld at 10 p.m. in favor of coverage of breaking news developments on a particularly serious story.
In a different era, says Wallace, news for most TV operations was something “churned out” in daytime hours, and the process stopped at 7 p.m. But “social media has changed a lot of that, he notes, adding that viewers are keenly aware of “so much information coming out at different times. We have evolved.” Executives at Fox News don’t do many press interviews, and the company’s willingness to make Wallace available for a wide-ranging discussion about its news operations, just as Fox News touts its 30th anniversary, reflects the importance such activity will have in coming weeks.
Election coverage typically draws wider viewership to all the nation’s TV-news outlets — and the ad dollars that try to follow such activity. Fox News offers stability this election season, while many of its rivals are adjusting to corporate maneuvers. MS NOW, part of Versant, will tackle its first midterm election this year without the help of newsgathering from NBC News.
Both CBS News and CNN are likely to be scrutinized this year for how they perform under Skydance, the Ellison family vehicle forged from the combination of Paramount and Warner Bros. The Ellisons have displayed close ties to the Trump administration and the installation of Bari Weiss, a digital entrepreneur and opinion journalist as top editor at CBS News, has generated significant controversy. Instead, he says, Fox News hopes to draw audiences with compelling newsmaker interviews and top-notch voting analysis, while the network’s overall reach makes it a venue that newsmakers should not avoid.
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