JUAN WILLIAMS: My wife thought I was crazy to join Fox News. I’m glad I did

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My wife said I was crazy.

This was 1996, thirty years ago.

I worked for the established brand name in cable television, CNN.

Why then, she asked, with three young school-age children still at home, was I willing to give up that prime seat to join a start-up cable network being launched by a controversial Australian media mogul, Rupert Murdoch?

“Crazy!” Yes!But I told her they were going to be scrappy, innovative, and give me a foothold on the ground floor of the next era of news.

So, I went with the new kids in cable news.

From the early days, the screen has been full of colorful graphics.Stories come and go fast.Heroes and villains are clear-cut.Crime stories and war stories took center stage — no matter where they occurred.

The on-air people did not speak down to the audience as experts.They talked to them as friends and neighbors, always shaking their heads at a crazy world.

Roger Ailes, the first head of the network, knew politics.He was a top GOP consultant.And his top programming aide, Chet Collier, a Democrat, had been Ailes’ mentor at the popular daytime talk show, “The Mike Douglas Show.”

I’d worked at The Washington Post and CNN.In bestselling books, I called out politicians on the right and the left.

And as a Black journalist, I was known to trade punches with Black politicians.

�s founders wanted me to trade punches with their right-wing media personalities.I was happy to get in on the action.

Ratings slowly climbed as viewers discovered turn-up-the-volume debates among finger-pointing, smirking, laughing, and eye-rolling personalities.

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The impeachment of a president included nightly stories about the popular President Clinton facing a hard-edged prosecutor, Kenneth Starr.And then came provocative reports about a blue dress and cigars.The ratings climbed.

C.bureau with Brit Hume, then the managing editor.He held the air for hours of hearings and press conferences.I was by his side as we struggled with new equipment, technicians discovering buttons, and producers shouting breaking news into our earpieces.

� the countless people who treat me as a friend when we meet in diners, airports, supermarkets, campaign rallies, ball games, convention halls, studios and green rooms across America.

The same chaos followed when “For Snow, Hume, and an all-star panel of D.C.commentators, including Fred Barnes, Mort Kondracke — hail to the Beltway Boys — Mara Liasson, Bill Kristol, and Charles Krauthammer, every show was about speaking directly to the hot, populist passions in politics.

It was about being sharp with each other and giving no quarter to political guests.

Krauthammer would win laughs and applause on the lecture circuit by beginning his speeches by saying he was grateful to be invited anywhere Juan Williams could not interrupt him.

�4 Supreme Court decision that gave the White House to an underdog Republican who lost the popular vote.

And when terrorists struck the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001— 25 years ago this month �Bush.� coverage of the war in Iraq and the fight against terrorist cells in Afghanistan.

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It was a freezing night in Des Moines when the “All-Star” panel realized Barack Obama, a Black man, was about to win the Iowa caucuses.

On the air, I started crying.�s history, and especially to Black American history.

Obama speaking at campaign event in 2024

It was a freezing night in Des Moines when the “All-Star” panel realized Barack Obama, a Black man, was about to win the Iowa caucuses.On the air, I started crying.�s history, and especially to Black American history.(Jeff Swensen/Getty Images)

Another memory is being lustily booed by an auditorium full of South Carolina Republican voters in 2012.

Years later, I would joke with the Speaker that he had me to thank for his upset victory in the Palmetto State primary.

That exchange became one of the first viral moments of a presidential campaign in the early internet age.

By Obama’s second term, I was spending more time in the New York studios as a co-host of “The Five.” By 2015, I began nearly a decade of living in New York to co-host the show.My role was described by Ailes as a center-left foil to the conservatives on the show.

Politico summed up my role this way: ’s Lone-Wolf Liberal Had a Tough Job.But It Made for Better TV.”

“Juan Williams was particularly good at what might be the hardest, least appreciated, and most important job in cable news,” the outlet wrote.

“The Five” became the number one show on the number one cable channel and delivered a robust message about debate in America.No matter your politics, no matter if you are with conservatives or liberals, and no matter racial and religious lines, “We the People” — Americans of all stripes — can find common ground in defense of honest debate, even with rants and occasional posturing.

“You cut a path through the jungle,” a friend recently told me as we reminisced about the state of the media and the dearth today of conservative media platforms where liberals feel comfortable appearing, as well as liberal platforms where conservatives feel comfortable appearing.

I’ve written more than a dozen books over the last 30 years.And on book tours, hard-right conservatives show up to tell me they disagree with me but love hearing a different point of view from someone they trust and, sometimes grudgingly, even like.

In truth, working with Brit, Shannon Bream, Bret Baier, Bill O’Reilly,Sean Hannity, and so many others almost always ended with more conversation, then dinner, a ballgame, or a beer.Brit once said the two of us are like TV’s pro wrestlers.We fight like hell tonight, and the next night we go to another town and do it again.

The bitterness we see online is produced by computer algorithms designed to divide Americans.There’s a bond.

� 30th anniversary, I find myself thinking less about ratings or political fights than about friendships.

I think about Charles.

I think about Tony.

I think about Roger and Chet.

I think about Brit, Mara, Bill, Fred, Chris, and Bret.

I think about people like Cherie Grzech, who directed politics, and Porter Berry, who ran shows before taking control of.I shared offices with Mike Emanuel and Leland Vittert.

� the countless people who treat me as a friend when we meet in diners, airports, supermarkets, campaign rallies, ball games, convention halls, studios, and green rooms across America.