Bill Maher, Who Was Once Fired By ABC, s ABC Firing Terry Moran
During this week’s episode of Overtime, the YouTube show for those poor lost souls who somehow didn’t get enough of Bill Maher’s opinions on the hour-long Real Time, the host was asked by a viewer for his thoughts on the firing of Terry Moran.
Moran, a correspondent for ABC News, was suspended, and eventually fired, due to social media posts in which he called President Donald Trump and Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller “world class” haters. He also claimed that Miller is “vile.” The network took issue with this, but not because it was defamatory to the vile community.
As reported by The Los Angeles Times, an ABC News rep stated that Moran’s actions “violated editorial standards and his contract was not renewed,” further explaining that “at ABC News, we hold all of our reporters to the highest standards of objectivity, fairness and professionalism, and we remain committed to delivering straightforward, trusted journalism.”
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The move has elicited quite a lot of criticism, including from The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart, who called the firing “stupid” and “a fucking joke.” “Literally every day on Fox News they’re taking stuff out of context or their people are saying utterly vicious things about democratic politicians,” Stewart said on his Weekly Show podcast. “The entire thing is because ABC clings to this facade that they somehow exist in a bubble outside all of this.”
So did Maher, who routinely rages against “cancel culture” similarly blast the network?
Far from it. In fact, Maher vociferously defended ABC. “(There’s) lots of jobs you can have and do that, that is the one job (where) I’m looking at you to be impartial,” Maher argued. “Just give me the facts. I don’t need to know this from you Terry Moran.”
Of course, it’s extra-odd that Maher wouldn’t be more sympathetic to someone being fired by ABC for sharing a political opinion, considering that he was once fired by ABC for sharing a political opinion. And it’s an issue that he still seems to be pretty touchy about.
But Maher was quick to try and insulate himself from allegations of hypocrisy on Real Time. “If anybody’s like, ‘What about you Bill?’ This is an opinion show,” the host stressed. “This is not a show where I break stories, I break new ways of looking at stories. If you don’t get that, I wasted the whole 699 shows.”
Of course, that doesn’t mean that there weren’t other reasons why Maher could have been fired (for a second time).
