Chris Wallace leaving Fox News for `new adventure’

Veteran Fox News anchor Chris Wallace said Sunday that he is leaving the network after 18 years and was “ready for a new adventure.”

Wallace made the announcement at the end of the weekly news show he moderates, “Fox News Sunday.”

“After 18 years this is my final ‘Fox News Sunday.’ It is the last time, and I say this with real sadness, we will meet like this. Eighteen years ago, the bosses at here at Fox promised they would never interfere with a guest I booked or a question I asked. And they kept that promise.”

Wallace, 74, said he had been “free to report to the best of my ability, to cover the stories I think are important, to hold our country’s leaders to account. It’s been a great ride.’’

He said he was leaving after 18 years at the network because “I want to try something new, to go beyond politics to all the things I’m interested in. I’m ready for a new adventure and I hope you’ll check it out.’’

Wallace did not give any details about that “adventure.”

Wallace has been viewed as methodical, even-tempered and never showy, in contrast to his father Mike, the legendary “60 Minutes” reporter who relished his reputation as the interviewer no one wanted to see on the doorstep.

Chris Wallace was a White House correspondent with NBC in the 1980s and he left ABC News in 2003 for his own Sunday show at Fox.

In 2016, Wallace became the first Fox journalist to moderate a general election presidential debate.