Terry Moran, a former ABC News reporter, admitted on his Substack that reporters at the network had "inadvertent" bias and almost no one there supported President Donald Trump.
Moran made the admission in a Substack post where he criticized the recent decision by the Federal Communications Commission to appoint a "bias monitor" at CBS News to oversee its coverage as part of a condition of the $8 billion sale of Paramount to Skydance Media.
He joined Substack after he was fired by ABC News for calling White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller "a world-class hater" on social media.
"The Trump FCC demanded an in-house stooge at the news division to alert the corporate bosses when the journalists get out of line and exhibit 'bias,'" Moran wrote. "How is 'bias' defined? You already know that. In Trump-speak, 'bias' is whenever Donald Trump doesn't like a story."
Moran, who worked at ABC News for 28 years, said the network had a lack of viewpoint diversity, which led to inadvertent bias.
"When I joined ABC News in 1997, it was basically run by white men," Moran said. "That management structure lasted for a long time, way too long. But over the last decade or so, the company made an effort to hire and promote journalists from a much wider diversity of backgrounds and life experiences."
Despite the efforts to have people from different backgrounds, Moran said hardly anyone at ABC or other legacy networks supported Trump.
"This is bound to impact coverage, not so much out of malevolent bias, but more out of what is a kind of deafness," Moran wrote. "The old news divisions don't hear many of the voices of the country, because those voices aren't in the newsroom. Yes, news teams go out with a microphone and a camera and accost people at Trump rallies; but to me that often comes off as weirdly anthropological and inaccurate, kind of like trying to understand nature by visiting a zoo. You don't really see a tiger at the zoo, just a version of a tiger."
Moran sharply criticized FCC Chair Brendan Carr, saying he "can go to hell," comparing him to fascist leaders in Europe who sought to take control of the media.
"There won't be jackbooted goons crashing into television studios or gulags for reporters," Moran said. "It will be accomplished by relentlessly bringing down regulatory power on media outlets and by the maximal use of legal authorities, tendentiously and dishonestly interpreted. It will be done by lawyers, zealots and toadies. Like Brendan Carr, who's all three."
Sam Barron ✉
Sam Barron has almost two decades of experience covering a wide range of topics including politics, crime and business.