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Former ABC News reporter Terry Moran said it was not a journalist’s job to be “objective” while also praising CBS News correspondent Scott Pelley’s viral graduation speech attacking President Donald Trump in an interview on Monday.
Moran, who was axed from ABC News last week after posting an anti-Trump rant on X, knocked the notion that journalists were supposed to be unbiased in their news coverage in a conversation with The Bulwark’s Tim Miller posted to Substack.
After describing himself as a “centrist” and “Hubert Humphrey Democrat,” Moran dismissed critics from the right who said his post unmasked a liberal bias that is typical in the media.
“My own feeling is that you don’t sacrifice your citizenship as a journalist. Your job is not to be objective,” he said.
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He also mocked the idea that objectivity was a realistic journalistic standard.
“There is no Mount Olympus of objectivity where a Mandarin class of wise people have no feelings about their society,” he continued. “We’re all in this together. What you have to be is fair and accurate.”
Moran touted his interview with Trump in April as one recent example of where he felt he met that objective. Trump repeatedly criticized Moran in the combative interview.
He also weighed in on Pelley’s fiery commencement address at Wake Forest University last month that caused a stir.
“I thought Scott was absolutely spot on,” Moran said. “I’m now in a position where I can help in that good work. That fills me with joy as well. We can all put our shoulder to the wheel because I do think he’s right. This is a moment of danger, and I’m happy to be able to help if I can.”
Pelley warned graduates of threats to truth, DEI and freedom of speech under the Trump administration and urged them to speak up against it.
“In this moment, this moment, this morning, our sacred rule of law is under attack. Journalism is under attack. Universities are under attack. Freedom of speech is under attack. And insidious fear is reaching through our schools, our businesses, our homes and into our private thoughts, the fear to speak in America. If our government is, in Lincoln’s phrase, ‘Of the people, by the people, for the people,’ then why are we afraid to speak?” Pelley said at one part of the address.
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During the Monday interview, Moran doubled down on his June 8 social media post that called Trump and White House aide Stephen Miller “world-class haters.”
“This, while very hot, is an observation, a description that is accurate and true,” he said.
He added later, “It was something that was in my heart and mind. And I would say I used very strong language, deliberately, because he, I felt, and it wasn’t any – you see him all the time doing the same, spitting venom and lies into our debate, degrading our public discourse, debasing it and using the power of the White House and what he’s been given to grind us down in that bile. And, that’s very disturbing to me.”
Moran deleted the post and was initially suspended by ABC News over the incident.
The network, which he had worked at since 1997, fired him days later, just before his contact was set to expire.
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He also reflected on the fallout from the post in his conversation with Miller.
“I realized that this was going to be a very serious situation and had to stand up, you know, and deal with it. And activity is one of the best things to assuage fear. But also, I thought about it in my own conscience first. And I thought, as I tell you, I wrote it because I thought it was true. And at the end of the day, when all the bad stuff has happened, my children will know that whatever it means, it means that,” he said.
Fox News’ Hanna Panreck contributed to this report.
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