Brit Hume

Alexander Britton "Brit Hume" is a journalist and political analyst from the United States. Hume worked for ABC News for 23 years, contributing to World News Tonight with Peter Jennings, Nightline, and This Week. From 1989 through 1996, he was ABC News' principal White House correspondent.

Background

Alexander Britton (Brit) Hume was born on June 22, 1943, in Washington, D.C. His parents are George Graham Hume and Virginia Powell Hume. Brit's parents are of Scottish descent. His Scottish heritage gave him a unique viewpoint as he grew up in America.

He attended St. Albans School in Washington, D.C., which provided him with excellent high school education. After completing high school, Hume went on to study at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. He was a great student during his college days, and he graduated with a Bachelor's Degree in English. He got the degree in 1965, a year that he would remember for the rest of his life.

Broadcasting Career

Brit is best known for his work as an ABC correspondent and FOX news anchor. One of his most prominent roles was being a panelist for the program Fox News Sunday. Brit's excellent commentary and coverage have led him to become the winner of an Emmy Award. He won the award for his coverage of the Gulf War in 1991.

Brit began his journalism career at The Hartford Times Newspaper Company. After few years of experience, he continued to United Press International and Baltimore Evening Sun's famous newspaper. In the early 70s, he worked for Jack Anderson and became an ABC News consultant in 1973.

After three years spending his career at ABC channel, he started to get the attention of the network executives and producers. He was assigned to be a correspondent that would cover the U.S. House of Representatives for 11 years. Hume became ABC's Chief White House Correspondent in 1989. Since his promotion, he covered the presidential administrations of Presidents Bush and Bill Clinton along with his fellow anchors Peter Jennings and Charlie Gibson.

Brit worked on the ABC network until 1996. In that significant year, he decided to take his skills to move on to the Fox News Network. He became Fox News' Washington Managing Editor. Fox News was aware of his excellent work with ABC and felt that he could duplicate or even exceed his success on their network.

Starting in 1998, Brit became an anchor of his program called Special Report with Brit Hume. Brit began this program with The Lewinsky scandal, which began to getting coverage during January of 1998. Special Report was the number one cable news program in its timeslot for a few years. He hosted his final episode as an anchor on Special Report in December of 2008. After the end of his show, Hume remained with Fox News as a senior political analyst and regular guest for Fox News Sunday.

Reuters asked him about the departure when he left Special Report, "I think it's time. It's a good idea to go out when you're still doing OK rather than waiting until you're getting old and people stop listening to you. That's part of it. A big part of it is that I have many other things that I want to do. To cite one example, I have a couple of grandchildren that I'm just crazy about. With the job I have now, I really can't go to their plays or games. There's a grandparents' event they have at school. I haven't been able to go. These anchor jobs at cable channels, if you care at all about the content of your program, they're demanding. To try to do a quality program is a lot of work."

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Brit mentioned that he lost a lot of enthusiasm for his job. He felt that he shouldn't hold onto a job if he were losing passion for it, "I think it's the indispensable ingredient in TV news, and maybe in the news in general. You see someone like Mike Wallace, who went on and on and on to a very advanced age, but he was fine because he never lost his zest for this stuff. The cycles or events didn't seem to tire him out. I feel all the time when I'm covering the news that I've seen this before. That's valuable because it may give you insight into how things will go or what they mean. But after a while, it makes it less interesting. And that's a bad thing. That makes me less valuable, I think."

Hume was named to be the anchor of On the Record after Greta Van Susteren left Fox News. He was on air for only two months, from September until November. He appreciated that he would have a lighter schedule which gave him more time to be with his family.

Awards and Accomplishments

Brit got an Emmy Award for his coverage of the Gulf War in 1991. He was also a two-time winner of American Journalism Review's "Best in the Business" award during his coverage of news from the White House.

Hume also reported on Walter Mondale's 1984 presidential campaign, and the second time she covered a campaign was with George H.W. Bush's 1988 presidential campaign. He also released two books, "Death and the Mines – Rebellion and Murder in the United Mine Worker" in 1971 and "Inside Story" in 1974.

Personal Life

Brit Hume was married twice in life. His first wife was Clare Jacobs Stoner, it was a short marriage, and they divorced quickly. Then Hume was married to a woman named Kim Schiller. His second wife worked on the Fox News channel too. She was the network's Washington bureau chief.

They have a son Sandy Hume who became a Washington journalist too; he wrote for "The Hill" newspaper. Sandy Hume committed suicide in 1998, which was very hard for the family. Brit overcame the tragedy and moved on with his life. He worked hard at FOX to distract himself from the depression. Brit also has other children named Louis and Virginia.

Brit Hume's daughter, Virginia, was a contributor to The Weekly Standard. She worked in public relations, political communications, and traditional marketing for 25 years. Her political experience includes working as the Republican National Committee's deputy press secretary in 1996.

Brit Hume's net worth is about 4 million dollars, and he also receives a 2 million salary every year from his broadcasting work.

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