Chris Wallace Joins CNN+
Chris Wallace is joining CNN as an anchor for CNN+, the much-anticipated streaming subscription service that will debut in Q1 2022.
“I am thrilled to join CNN+. After decades in broadcast and cable news, I am excited to explore the world of streaming. I look forward to the new freedom and flexibility streaming affords in interviewing major figures across the news landscape—and finding new ways to tell stories,” said Wallace. “As I embark on this adventure, I am honored and delighted to join Jeff Zucker and his great team. I can’t wait to get started.”
Praised as an “equal opportunity inquisitor” by The Boston Globe and “an aggressive journalist,” “sharp edged” and “solid” by The Washington Post, Wallace’s new show will feature interviews with newsmakers across politics, business, sports and culture. The new weekday show will contribute to CNN+’s slate of original, live programming and will be available at launch.
“It is not often that a news organization gets the opportunity to bring someone of Chris Wallace’s caliber on board. He is as fine a journalist as there is in our business. This speaks volumes about our commitment to journalism and CNN+, and we are thrilled to have Chris on the ground floor of helping us build the next generation of CNN and news,” said Jeff Zucker, Chairman, WarnerMedia News and Sports and President, CNN Worldwide.
Wallace joins CNN after more than 50 award-winning years in broadcasting, including 18 years with Fox News where he was the anchor of FOX News Sunday.
Wallace has won every major broadcast news award for his reporting, including three Emmy Awards, the duPont-Columbia Silver Baton, the Peabody Award and the Sol Taishoff Award for Broadcast Journalism, which was awarded to him by the National Press Foundation. Most recently, he was honored with the 2020 Poynter Medal for Lifetime Achievement in Journalism and was named Mediaite’s 2020 Most Influential in News Media for his “clear-eyed reporting, analysis and commentary throughout the year.” Wallace also received the ICFJ Founders Award for Excellence in Journalism for “his unbiased, piercing approach to interviews.” In 2013, Wallace earned the Paul White Award for lifetime achievement and service to electronic journalism from the Radio Television Digital News Association.
Throughout his almost two decades at Fox, Wallace participated in coverage of every major political event and secured high-profile interviews with dignitaries and U.S leaders. Wallace was chosen by the Commission on Presidential Debates to moderate the first presidential debate of the 2020 election season. In 2016, Wallace became the first journalist from Fox to moderate a general election presidential debate, and in August 2015, Wallace co-moderated the first GOP presidential debate of the 2016 election cycle along with the network’s second and third debates.
Wallace is also the New York Times bestselling author of Countdown bin Laden: The Untold Story of the 247-Day Hunt to Bring the Mastermind of 9/11 to Justice and Countdown 1945: The Extraordinary Story of the Atomic Bomb and the 116 Days That Changed the World.
Before joining Fox, Wallace worked at ABC News for 14 years where he served as the chief correspondent for Primetime Thursday and a substitute host for Nightline. Prior to ABC, Wallace was NBC’s chief White House correspondent and moderated Meet the Press, making him the only person to have hosted two Sunday talk shows. He also anchored the Sunday edition of NBC Nightly News. Wallace began his career as a city hall reporter for the Boston Globe.
More information about Wallace’s show, additional hires and CNN+’s full lineup will be available in the weeks and months to come.
Emily.Kuhn@CNN.com