by WorldTribune Staff, August 20, 2026 Non-AI Real World News
In his 20-year career at ABC News, Terry Moran said he only felt the “heavy hand of censorship” one time.
That one time, Moran told “The Fifth Column” podcast, was when the network censored his Covid lab-leak story for “Nightline” in 2021 after Anthony Fauci reviewed it just hours before it was set to air.
Moran said he pitched the idea for the report to “Nightline” in early 2021 after people he thought were “smart and serious” stated their belief that the Covid virus likely came from a lab.
The segment contained interviews with molecular biologists and former Trump Administration officials. It also “broke a little news” based on information from sources in the “three-letter agencies” who said the Chinese military had funded the Wuhan Institute of Virology — the lab that was researching coronaviruses.
The segment was ready to air and went for review. When Moran got the edited script back, he said it was “incomprehensible,” adding, “I’d never been angrier.”
Moran said the script was reviewed by “lawyers’ standards, and — I was told — Fauci.”
Moran said he was “cursing and screaming,” and that he never watched the aired segment afterward because he considered it unrecognizable from what he had produced.
Moran said he didn’t have firsthand knowledge that the script had been sent to Fauci, but “that’s what I was told.”
“Fifth Column” co-host Michael Moynihan asked whether merely raising the idea the virus had come from a lab was dangerous.
Moran replied: “Well, if you know the whole story, right? There was an organized campaign by one of the guys who was funding the research … what was his name, [Peter] Daszak or whatever, to get scientists to sign on and say, ‘There’s no way there’s a lab leak,’ and anybody who says that this came from the lab is, you know, participating in racism or something.”
He said the racism accusations “really silenced” ABC News.
Moran said he thought the piece would hold up today until there is better evidence that the virus had a natural origin.
In June of 2025, Moran was fired from ABC News after a social media rant against President Donald Trump and Stephen Miller, Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy and Homeland Security Advisor. Of Miller, he wrote: “You can see that his hatreds are his spiritual nourishment. He eats his hate.” Of Trump, Moran opined that his so-called “hate” was “hatred only [sic] a means to an end, and that end his [sic] his own glorification. That’s his spiritual nourishment.”
RedState’s Sister Toldjah noted: “Like many disgraced former corporate media journos (such as ex-CNNer Jim Acosta), Moran landed at Substack alongside other seemingly like-minded individuals. In a recent interview he did for the Fifth Column Substack page, Moran finally got around to admitting that yes, ABC News – and most MSM outlets – are biased against President Trump.”
Terry Moran admits that ABC News is a “liberal institution.”
“Like a lot of mainstream media, it’s because of a lack of viewpoint diversity.”
Confirming what everyone already knows here now that there is zero downside to him for doing it. pic.twitter.com/zdEp0E1aGF
— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) August 15, 2026
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