Should news reporters show their feelings?
Welcome to journalism in the age of social media.
ABC News suspended Terry Moran on Saturday, after the veteran correspondent posted comments on X about Donald Trump and his deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller.
"The thing about Stephen Miller is not that he is the brains behind Trumpism,” Moran tweeted. “Yes, he is one of the people who conceptualizes the impulses of the Trumpist movement and translates them into policy. But that's not what's interesting about Miller. It's not brains. It's bile.
“Miller is a man who is richly endowed with the capacity for hatred. He's a world-class hater. You can see this just by looking at him because you can see that his hatreds are his spiritual nourishment. He eats his hate."
Then Moran turned to Trump. "Trump is a world-class hater. But his hatred [is] only a means to an end, and that end is his own glorification. That's his spiritual nourishment."
Moran eventually deleted the tweets, but the damage had already been done. Just a few hours later, ABC News released this statement:
"ABC News stands for objectivity and impartiality in its news coverage and does not condone subjective personal attacks on others. The post does not reflect the views of ABC News and violated our standards — as a result, Terry Moran has been suspended pending further evaluation."
Why can’t a journalist speak his mind when he’s off the clock?
Journalists are never off the clock if they have a social media presence (which most of them do). While some use the space to talk about their personal lives, others see social media as an extension of their reporting. And a few use platforms like X to give their personal takes on the news.
This is not so egregious if you’re on an entertainment-type news show like The Five, Hannity or The View because people already know where you stand. When you are a tried-and-true journalist, your job is to deliver the news with fair reporting. If you take to X to further discuss a person or an issue, you’d better back that up with facts.
A sentence like “He eats his hate” is not factual. It is a euphemism for saying that Miller is a vile human being. And that is a personal opinion. Other people can and do dislike Miller, but they are not professional journalists.
Moran’s job is to deliver the news and let the audience decide. If his opinion is based on what he has uncovered as a newsperson, he should let his investigative skills do the explaining.
This should not be something based on who sits in the White House. Anytime a journalist adds statements based on feelings rather than facts, they should be called on it.
What do you think?
“Moran’s job is to deliver the news and let the audience decide. If his opinion is based on what he has uncovered as a newsperson, he should let his investigative skills do the explaining.”
Agreed.
However, journalists and networks still impact their viewers' opinions and feelings on a topic by what they choose to report and what they choose to ignore or gloss over. This selective coverage is more deceptive and manipulative than Moran stating his personal feelings about the administration.
These days journalists are very open and share their opinions even when they shouldn't. Moran chose to share his personal opinion on a very public platform and then had to retract it. If he kept it within his own group it would have been different. We never knew what Cronkite, Brinkley, Huntley or Jennings thought about a topic (except when Cronkite broke up announcing the death of JFK). No doubt they were very liberal politically. But now it's not just reporting, it's reporting with your personal bias. It becomes more difficult to know what to believe about their report when the opinion so differs from yours.