Eric Shawn, veteran Fox News reporter, sat down with Mediaite to discuss his career in journalism and his current focus on election and voter fraud.
Born and raised in New York, Shawn got an early jump on his journalistic career. In high school, he conducted interviews for his local public access station. From there, he moved on to Georgetown University where he graduated with a degree in urban studies and soon began reporting professionally.
Shawn’s resume reads like a list of New York City’s legacy, powerhouse television networks: he worked for channel 31 WNYC and channel 11 WPIX and finally moved to Fox’s flagship network WNYW channel 5.
“They sent me around the country doing news,” said Shawn. He covered the Gulf War, the humanitarian intervention in Somalia, the O.J. Simpson and the Mike Tyson trials with on-the-ground, in-depth reports.
In 1992, Fox sent Shawn
But that was not his first convention or the first time he met Bill Clinton. “I was also at the 1980 convention in Madison Square Garden,” Shawn recalls, while he was reporting for public access. “I met Bill Clinton in 1980. He went to Georgetown, so we had a conversation about that. Next thing you know, I’m running after him during the campaign in 1992.”
Shawn covered the United Nations for Fox News over the course of the contentious and public diplomatic shuttling that preceded the Iraq war. What he saw as a U.N. correspondent prompted him to write his 2006 book U.N. Exposed: How The United Nations Sabotages America’s Security and Fails the World.
“It’s not politically correct to criticize the U.N. On the surface,” said Shawn. “Go behind the scenes and see what happened with ‘Oil for Food’ program and see the bribes.”
Shawn may not have the most love for the institution of the U.N., having been assigned to cover instances of corruption in the international diplomatic community, but he continues to hold out hope for the idea of the U.N.
“I think the world needs an organization like the United Nations,” said Shawn. When asked if he was persona non grata after publishing his
“People were frankly urging us to keep going, and that we were absolutely doing the right thing,” said Shawn. “People would actually come up and thank us. I don’t think an organization was covered with that kind of magnifying glass by any – some, but not by the majority of other [news] organizations.”
Shawn has enthusiastically moved on to covering election fraud. He describes his style as “old fashioned, shoe-leather reporting,” knocking on doors and talking with voters who may or may not even know that they have been victims of election fraud.
Fox has sent Shawn across the country, tracking down incidents of fraudulent voting practices and exposing fraudsters.