Earlier this week, Fox News anchor Bill Hemmer found himself inside Gaza, near the Egyptian border and the town or Rafah, or what used to be Rafah.

That town has been reduced to rubble, there is very little if anything, that stands of Rafah today, Hemmer said in a report for his program Tuesday.

Hemmer, the co-anchor of Americas Newsroom alongside Dana Perino, was embedded with an aid group, staffed by former U.S. special forces, and supported by IDF snipers, who were delivering food inside Gaza, with Hemmer noting the hunger facing the Palestinians they encountered, and acknowledging the limited window they had into what was happening there. This morning, we only saw a small part of this war, a small part of Gaza, a small part of this story. And one day does not make the entire story for this ongoing war, he told Perino. On Thursday, he made international news in an interview with Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who replied we intend to when Hemmer asked whether Israel would take control of the entire Gaza strip. Hemmer also pressed the Prime Minister about allowing independent press to report from inside Gaza.

A week or so earlier, however, Hemmer was dodging tourists and office workers (as well as a few stray climate change protestors) on the Avenue of the Americas in midtown Manhattan, explaining to The Hollywood Reporter his approach to delivering the news.

In the cable news world, we want to take people to a fair representation of what is happening at that minute, Hemmer says. So when Im walking into the studio with Dana, I want to take the rundown, and throw it out the window. I want the audience to know that something is happening, were on top of it. You stay with us, and well take you through it.

It is an approach that can be traced back to his first day at Fox News, 20 years ago this month.

A veteran of local TV, Hemmer had subsequently joined CNN as an anchor and correspondent, but he left the channel to join Fox, which had emerged by then as the clear ratings leader in cable news. He had a start date set, but began his new job a few days early to help the channel cover Hurricane Katrina, which was about to make landfall in New Orleans.

I remember my boss at the time, Bill Shine, called me up and said, Hemmer, how about starting tonight?' the anchor recalls.

Bill Hemmer in the field reporting for Fox News as the network covered Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Fox News It was a transformative moment for Hemmer, who was not only covering one of the biggest news stories of that decade, but ingrained in him a skill that helps explain why he (and for that matter Fox News writ large) has been so successful in retaining its audience: The ability to keep the story going, in real-time, on-air.

I think radio hosts have that ability. I think sportscasters have that ability by the way, I started in sports, and maybe thats a little bit ingrained in me but my colleagues have the ability to take just a little bit of information and expand on it, keep it on TV, it allows us to keep the story on the screen for a longer period of time, and the net effect is we can reach reporters, we can reach officials, Hemmer says.

And it is a skill that still appears to be in vogue, even as the media landscape has shifted so vastly over the past 20 years, with social media platforms TikTok-ifying news content in to smaller and smaller bites.

Well, if thats our competition, we have to be as fast as they are, Hemmer says, acknowledging that he has had to adapt accordingly: Im still old school. I still need to print things out, I need to highlight. I need to write questions in the columns and come back on the stuff I am consuming. I am tactile.

A recent episode of Americas Newsroom underscored how Fox has reacted to that threat. Hemmer and co-host Dana Perino deftly weaved between a flurry of stories, from the silly (delivery robots in Los Angeles! A kitten in the New York City subway!) to the substantive (an update on the midtown Manhattan shooter, a segment about President Bidens pardons).

And along the way Hemmer and Perino helped the show make news: They hosted the CEO of the Tunnel to Towers Foundation in the studio, where he pledged to cover living expenses and education costs for the family of NYPD Officer Didarul Islam, who was killed in the midtown shooting.

And they grilled Senate Majority Leader John Thune in a live interview, using comments that President Trump said in a press gaggle aboard Air Force One to press the Senator on confirming judges, and whether further sanctions on Russia were coming.

We felt that was a way to make news on a story that hasnt been talked about a lot. Hes the Senate Majority Leader, so he would know, Hemmer says. Its incumbent upon me to know the story, to know it as well as I possibly can. And if something is said thats not making sense, follow up.

The pace of Americas Newsroom bears little resemblance to the headline driven news carousels of cable news programs of yore. Alongside the news and newsmaking interviews were segments more focused on commentary, bringing a taste of Fox News primetime to the dayside hours, another sign of how the format has changed over the years.

Mark Levin, the conservative radio host and Fox News weekend host, appeared to promote his new book On Power, though it turned into something closer to an extended commentary on Israel, Gaza, and media criticism (I know Im filibustering here, Levin says at one point). And the segment ending the broadcast featured comedian and Fox News Saturday Night host Jimmy Failla and Fox Business host Brian Brenberg in studio for something closer to a two-hander, with the pair trading quips about Rep. Jasmine Crockett and Hunter Biden.

I think the audience is expecting you sometimes to be assertive and sometimes to kick back in the chair, Hemmer says. With the majority leader, you want to catch every word. But if youre going to do lighter topics and have your colleagues join you for a lighter moment, give them that stage.

The job of the anchor, Hemmer says, has changed. Sometimes you need to be on it, pressing a guest, and sometimes you need to take a step back and set up what comes next.

When do you want to be assertive, and when do you want to be some orchestra conductor, and just tee up the instruments, he explains.

Of course, a big part of the job is still reacting: Reacting to the news, to what is said, and to what your gut instinct tells you. As any casual or avid viewer of cable news will tell you, President Trump seems to understand that dynamic better than anyone.

Trump is a constant presence on cable news, answering questions while signing executive orders in the Oval Office, or holding extended press gaggles on the White House lawn or aboard Air Force One. The result is a constantly moving news cycle, often driven by his comments.

Hemmer, for one, is always listening.

He can be a moving target on so many issues. But if you listen, you can find the nuggets and you can you can tell whether or not he has moved himself on a particular issue, Hemmer says, noting that his comments on hunger in Gaza were a good example, disagreeing with Netanyahu about the scale of the problem.

Hemmer, of course, saw it firsthand a week later.

Cable news remains a cutthroat business, and the best anchors and executives are acutely aware of their competition, not just the other channels, but the other places consumers are turning for news and information. Stories like the famine in Gaza and the fight between Israel and Hamas in many ways underscore that, with photos and videos ricocheting across social media at a speed that when Hemmer was covering Katrina would seem impossible to comprehend.

Hemmer, for his part, keeps tabs on it all.

Would I love for a 22-year-old to tell me that theyre watching cable news 24/7? Absolutely. But their habits change, and they can scroll for hours, and I admit that Instagram has gotten really good, he says with a smile, adding that he likes to keep tabs on whats happening so that it can inform his coverage.

When he is anchoring Americas Newsroom, there is a panel in sight that has live feeds of all the other news channels, allowing Hemmer and Perino to see what stories everyone else are covering at that moment.

Im a child of cable news. I watch a lot. I watch us, I watch the competition, I watch the financial channels, he says. I think its a good way to understand what the conversation is, in order to funnel the direction for what you think is important for that moment. Now, it could change in an hour. Could change in the day, for sure probably change within a week.

And that interest extends to the larger news business, where he seems hopeful that the disruption facing TV can be managed, as painful as it might be, even if he wont claim to be the one to have all the answers. In a world with looming AI disruption that moves at social media speed, maybe there will be a benefit to moving just a little bit slower, and actually reporting from the places where the news is happening.

I think the big brands will always have a home, Hemmer says. Fox is always going to be a force, as are other news brands. CNN, NBC, ABC, theyre not going out of business.

As far as adjusting to the changing landscape, we think about that a lot, he adds. Not to sound pollyannish, but I think in the end, everythings gonna be okay.