Fox News correspondent Mike Emanuel has written a personal account of his career at the network, which he joined in 1997 as a largely unknown startup, before the channel was available on cable TV in much of the country.
Emanuel says he was hired as a correspondent without an in-person interview, based solely on an audition reel. Early in his tenure, before Fox News had wide distribution, he recalls having to tell interview subjects he would mail them a VHS tape of their segment after it aired, since many people could not find the channel on their television.
About a month into the job, Emanuel was sent to London to help cover the death of Princess Diana. He later worked out of Fox’s Los Angeles bureau, where his prior experience covering Texas politics — including then-Gov. George W. Bush, who nicknamed him “Mikey” — led his bosses to send him to open a Dallas bureau in 1998.
From Dallas, Emanuel covered Texas and the surrounding region through the 2000 presidential election. He was in Austin on election night, and remained there for six weeks as the Bush-Gore recount played out, before being asked to move to Washington.
September 11 and the wars that followed
Six months after relocating to Washington, Emanuel was on the roof of Fox’s D.C. bureau on Sept. 11, 2001, delivering live updates with smoke from the Pentagon visible behind him. He reported from the Pentagon later that day, and a month later was sent to Islamabad, Pakistan, to cover preparations for the war in Afghanistan. Early in 2002, he was sent to Kabul to cover the war itself.
In 2005, Emanuel embedded with the Army’s 10th Mountain Division soldiers tasked with securing western Baghdad ahead of an Iraqi election.
White House, Capitol Hill and the anchor desk
Emanuel served as a White House correspondent during the final years of the Bush administration and the early years of the Obama administration, interviewing President Bush about his role as wartime commander in chief and conducting then-Vice President Dick Cheney’s final television interview before leaving office.
In 2011, he moved to Capitol Hill as chief congressional correspondent, a beat he had not covered before, reporting on a decade of State of the Union addresses, Supreme Court and Cabinet confirmations, and government shutdowns. He later began filling in as an anchor and became a regular weekend anchor.
Emanuel was anchoring on Sunday, July 21, 2024, when then-President Joe Biden announced he was withdrawing from the re-election campaign, leading 90 minutes of unscripted breaking coverage. He was also anchoring on June 21, 2025, when President Trump ordered Operation Midnight Hammer, a series of precision strikes on three Iranian nuclear facilities, and again on Jan. 3, 2026, when Trump ordered Operation Absolute Resolve, a raid in Venezuela aimed at capturing Nicolás Maduro.
Reflecting on his nearly 30 years with the network, Emanuel describes the run as far beyond what he imagined when he started in local news in Midland-Odessa, Texas.
