Jane Skinner On Fox News: “What More Could You Ask For As A Reporter?”

Jane Skinner announced today would be her last on the air at Fox News, in order to spend more time with her family.

We talked to Skinner about the decision to leave, her boss, Roger Ailes and more.

Skinner told Mediaite this afternoon this was something she had been “thinking about for awhile,” and came to the decision a couple weeks ago. “I decided if I was going to do it, I decided to do it with this timing,” she said. “The kids are getting out of school, so it makes sense to enjoy the summer with them. A summer of eight-year-olds, a fall of football. Doesn’t sound all bad, does it?”

Skinner wouldn’t discuss the specifics of her conversation with Ailes, but that he was “very supportive” of her decision. “If anybody would understand how my time is being pushed and pulled by other responsibilities, he would,” she said.

Skinner has been with FNC since 1998 – a lengthy career at one spot, but a longevity that many other

top FNC talent share. “I worked for five bosses before Roger,” she said. “Not one, including all of my professors at journalism school, said, ‘you have a personality, you should use it.’ He was the first to say the news is inherently not boring…To work at a news organization, for a boss like that, what more could you ask for as a reporter?”

On the air, she thanked her current co-anchor Jon Scott and Shepard Smith, who she did the Skinnerville segment for during Studio B (and shared this YouTube moment with). There’s no word yet on who takes over for Skinner, but according to FNC’s release, “Jon Scott will continue to co-anchor Happening Now joined by a variety of FNC’s news talent in the interim.” (Maybe a non-white anchor?)

(Side note: We tried to get Skinner’s take on CNN’s Eliot Spitzer hire, but she wasn’t commenting.)

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