The media has been attacking Trump for years. But they always pretended it was genuine journalism.
Now an ABC reporter said the quiet part out loud about mainstream media bias.
Shattering the Myth of Objectivity
Terry Moran, freshly ousted from ABC News, didn’t mince words in a raw Substack chat with The Bulwark’s Tim Miller. The former reporter, unceremoniously dumped after a fiery anti-Trump X post, scoffed at the sacred cow of journalistic “objectivity.”
Calling himself a “centrist” and “Hubert Humphrey Democrat,” Moran waved off right-wing critics who claim his outburst exposed a liberal bias festering in mainstream media.
“My own feeling is that you don’t sacrifice your citizenship as a journalist. Your job is not to be objective,” he said, dismantling the idea that reporters should be emotionless robots. He sneered at the notion of a “Mount Olympus of objectivity” where some elite class of scribes floats above society’s mess.
“We’re all in this together. What you have to be is fair and accurate,” he argued, pointing to his tense April interview with Trump as proof he can walk that line.
Backing Pelley’s Battle Cry
Moran didn’t stop at torching objectivity. He threw his full weight behind CBS News’ Scott Pelley, whose viral Wake Forest commencement speech last month lit up the internet for its unapologetic jab at the Trump administration.
“I thought Scott was absolutely spot on,” Moran said, reveling in his newfound freedom to “help in that good work.”
Pelley’s address was a Molotov cocktail, warning graduates of a creeping “insidious fear” strangling truth, DEI, and free speech.
“In 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,” Pelley thundered, urging students to fight back against a government he implied was betraying Lincoln’s vision of “of the people, by the people, for the people.”
Moran, now unshackled from ABC’s leash, said Pelley’s words filled him with “joy” and a sense of purpose to join the resistance.
Owning the X Post That Ended It All
Moran’s June 8 X post, labeling Trump and Stephen Miller “world-class haters,” was the match that burned his ABC career to the ground. He doesn’t regret it.
“This, while very hot, is an observation, a description that is accurate and true,” he told Miller, defending his choice of “strong language” to call out Trump’s “venom and lies” that “debase” public discourse.
The post, since deleted, led to a swift suspension and then a pink slip from ABC, where he’d toiled since 1997. Reflecting on the fallout, Moran stood firm:
“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.” For Moran, the cost of speaking out was steep, but the truth was worth it.
