It’s official: Former Fox News co-president Bill Shine is joining the Trump administration Assistant to the President and Deputy Chief of Staff for Communications. The White House made the news official this afternoon:
Rumors about Shine joining the administration in a comms role have been swirling for months now. He had reportedly taken himself out of the running for the top communications jobs back in March, but last week Politico reported that the hire would be imminent.
Shine’s backstory is well known to those in the media business. He had a 20+ year tenure at Fox News beginning in 1996 (the year of FNC’s launch) before leaving in May 2017. He started as producer of Hannity & Colmes, and was promoted to executive producer, then vp of production, evp of programming and was named Fox News co-president in September 2016, a tenure that lasted just 7 months.
Reports that Shine was about to be fired from Fox prompted his friend and colleague Sean Hannity to tweet: “Somebody HIGH UP AND INSIDE FNC is trying to get an innocent person fired. i pray this is NOT true because if it is, that’s the total end of the FNC as we know it.”
Fast forward 14 months, and Hannity now the No. 1 show on cable news in total viewers and among the A25-54 demo.
Shine and Pres. Trump are quite familiar one another, going back years to when Trump would appear on the network’s shows. Back in July 2017, the former Fox Newser had dinner at the White House with the president, his longtime friend Sean Hannity and The Five co-host Kimberly Guilfoyle (who can be seen with the president’s son quite frequently these days).