From legacy news to liberal punditry: the journalists who dropped the pretense after leaving corporate media
CBS News reporter Scott MacFarlane announced on Monday that he is joining the far-left media company MeidasTouch.
MeidasTouch, which was initially formed as a political action committee designed to attack President Donald Trump in 2020, is a far cry from traditional journalism. MacFarlane ditching CBS News for MeidasTouch resulted in a slew of conservatives suggesting the move is the latest example of why many believe that legacy news organizations have a clear liberal bias.
But MacFarlane isn’t the first legacy journalist to openly pivot to the left once they rid themselves of the shackles of corporate America. Here are other once-mainstream journalists who followed a similar path:
Moran, who spent nearly 28 years at ABC News, interviewed Trump in the Oval Office in April 2025. The prestigious assignment marked the president’s 100th day in office and, presumably, wouldn’t have gone to a journalist with open disdain for the president.
Just six weeks later, Moran was let go by the Disney-owned network after posting social media attacks on Trump and White House aide Stephen Miller. He quickly launched a Substack and declared that legacy news organizations are "failing the American people" because corporate executives are fearful of the president.
Moran’s independent work has been wildly partisan, regularly criticizing Trump and his allies. He suggested House Speaker Mike Johnson is "worse than the pedophile Hastert" and that "Trump is a man of very low character whose whole life demonstrates it." He's also rolled out the red carpet for Trump-hating guests, interviewing liberal darlings like Stacey Abrams and ex-GOPers like Rick Wilson, Adam Kinzinger and Miles Taylor.
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Couric, the longtime co-host of NBC's "Today" and later anchor of the "CBS Evening News," left straight-news journalism largely in the rearview in recent years.
"America's Sweetheart" founded Katie Couric Media in 2017 and has since allowed her true feelings about politics to bubble to the surface. In 2021, Couric faced blowback from conservatives for suggesting Trump supporters need to be "deprogrammed" following the events of Jan. 6. She also called for Trump's impeachment.
In 2023, Couric was asked at the Texas Tribune Festival about her embrace of social causes in recent years, like abortion rights and gun control.
"I do feel more liberated," Couric said. "I think that for so long I had to appeal to this mass audience, you know, on ‘The Today Show.’ And I think we all, especially women, contort ourselves into that, you know, desire to be likable. And I think at some point in my career, I just realized not everybody is going to like me."
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She recalled once being at a donut shop in Nantucket where she saw someone wearing a shirt that read, "I'm not for everyone."
"And I was like, ‘I want that shirt,’" Couric said. "So I came home, I Googled it and I ordered that shirt."
"I mean, at some point, I think I believe strongly in reproductive rights. I think they're the foundation of equal rights for women. And I felt an obligation to say that," she continued. "Similarly, you know, I feel very strongly about reducing gun violence in this country. I've covered too many school shootings, too many mass shootings. You know, nothing happened after Sandy Hook… And I think, you know, 74% of NRA members want stricter gun laws. And the fact that we can't get it done because we are being held hostage by these extremists."
Don Lemon didn't exactly hide his partisan stripes when he was a primetime host on CNN, but he was always billed by the network as a straight news anchor despite the fact he compared Trump supporters to Ku Klux Klan members, defended Antifa and fumed over people unvaccinated against coronavirus "taking up the space" in hospitals.
After 17 years at the network, CNN cut ties with Lemon in 2023 after the blowback he received for claiming that Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley was past her "prime." Now, as an independent journalist, Lemon has fully embraced his liberal persona with unabashed anti-Trump commentary.
The former anchor has been in the spotlight in recent weeks being swept up in a legal battle against the Trump's Justice Department.
Lemon went viral in January for livestreaming the storming of a Minnesota church by far-left anti-ICE agitators. He's insisted he was working as a journalist to cover the disrupted church service but the DOJ believes otherwise, lumping him with other protesters and charging them with conspiracy to deprive of religious freedom rights and a violation of the FACE Act.
He pleaded not guilty and has used the incident to further attack the Trump administration.
Jim Acosta was a thorn in Trump’s side while serving as CNN’s White House correspondent during the president’s first term in office. Like Lemon, Acosta was also accused by conservatives of having a liberal bias throughout his tenure at CNN.
When leaving the network in January 2025, Acosta used his farewell monologue to deliver a message about the state of journalism.
"Don’t give into the lies. Don’t give into the fear. Hold onto the truth, and to hope," the anchor said. "Even if you have to get out your phone, record that message. I will not give into the lies. I will not give into the fear," he continued. "Post it on your social media, so people can hear from you, too."
Acosta now has a daily YouTube show regularly featuring Trump foes like Rosie O'Donnell, Kathy Griffin and far-left podcast host Jennifer Welch.
He raised eyebrows when he pushed for gun control by releasing an interview with an AI avatar of Joaquin Oliver, a Parkland shooting victim. Acosta also donned a frog hat at the "State of the Swamp," a counter program to Trump's State of the Union address last month, which was live streamed on Acosta's YouTube channel.
Last year, Acosta irked the White House with a joke about the burial site of the president's deceased first wife Ivana Trump, the mother of Trump's eldest children Don Jr., Ivanka and Eric.
"How many immigrants has he married? He's got one buried at his golf course in New Jersey! Isn't she buried by the first hole or the second tee or something like that? Immigrants always doing the jobs that Americans don't want to do," Acosta said of Ivana, who is buried at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt called Acosta a "disgraceful human being" in a statement to Fox News Digital.
Fox News Digital’s Alexander Hall contributed to this report.