Journalists who dropped the pretense after leaving corporate media

CBS News correspondent Scott MacFarlane announced Monday that he is joining far-left media company MeidasTouch.

Originally founded in 2020 as a political action committee designed to attack President Donald Trump, MeidasTouch is a far cry from traditional journalism.

MacFarlane’s departure from CBS News for MeidasTouch prompted a group of conservatives to suggest the move was the latest example of why many believe legacy news organizations have a clear liberal bias.

But MacFarlane is not the first former journalist to turn openly left after throwing off the shackles of corporate America. Here are once mainstream journalists who followed a similar path:

VETERAN CBS CORRESPONDENT JOINS FAR LEFT MEDIA COMPANY MEIDASTOUCH AS AN ANCHOR, SAYS THEY SHARE THE SAME ‘NORTH STAR’

Terry Moran

Moran, who spent nearly 28 years at ABC News, interviewed Trump in the Oval Office in April 2025. This prestigious post coincided with the president’s 100th day in office and probably wouldn’t have gone to a journalist who openly disdained the president.

Just six weeks later, Moran was let go by the Disney-owned network after posting social media attacks against Trump and White House aide Stephen Miller. He immediately launched a Substack and declared that legacy news organizations were “failing the American people” because corporate executives feared the president.

Moran’s independent work has been highly partisan, and he has regularly criticized Trump and his allies. He claimed that House Speaker Mike Johnson was “worse than the pedophile Hastert” and that “Trump is a man of very low character and has shown it his whole life.”

He also rolled out the red carpet for Trump-hating guests; He interviewed liberal darlings like Stacey Abrams and former GOpers like Rick Wilson, Adam Kinzinger and Miles Taylor.

KATIE COURIC REJECTS ‘DOUBATISM’ IN THE NEWS, SAYS PEOPLE DON’T WANT ‘JUST THE FACTS’

Katie Couric

Katie Couric was the longtime co-host of NBC’s “Today” show and later the host of the “CBS Evening News.” (John Lamparski/Getty Images)

Couric, the longtime co-host of NBC’s “Today” show and later anchor of the “CBS Evening News,” has largely left straight news journalism on the backburner in recent years.

“America’s Sweetheart” founded Katie Couric Media in 2017 and has since let her true feelings about politics come to the surface. In 2021, Couric faced backlash from conservatives for suggesting that Trump supporters needed to be “deprogrammed” after the events of January 6. Couric also called for Trump’s impeachment.

At the Texas Tribune Festival in 2023, Couric was asked how she has embraced social issues like abortion rights and gun control in recent years.

“I feel freer,” Couric said. “I think I had to appeal to this mass audience for a very long time on ‘The Today Show.’ And I think we all, especially women, fool ourselves with the desire to be likeable. And I think at some point in my career I realized that not everyone is going to like me.”

KATIE COURIC ESTABLISHES HER LIBERAL STANCE ON BROADCAST NEWS IN LATER YEARS: ‘I’M NOT FOR EVERYONE’

He recalled once seeing someone at a donut shop in Nantucket wearing a shirt that said “I’m not for everyone.”

“And I said, ‘I want that shirt,'” Couric said. “I came home, googled it and ordered that shirt.

“I mean, I think at one point I believed strongly in reproductive rights. I think they were the foundation of equal rights for women. And I felt compelled 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 do that because we’re held hostage by extremists.”

Don Lemon

Don Lemon was at CNN for 17 years before starting his own YouTube channel. (Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)

Don Lemon didn’t exactly hide his partisan stripes when he was CNN’s prime-time anchor, but he was always billed as a straight news anchor by the network, even as he compared Trump supporters to members of the Ku Klux Klan, defended Antifa and raged that people unvaccinated against the coronavirus were “taking up space” in hospitals.

After 17 years at the network, CNN cut ties with Lemon in 2023 following backlash for claiming that Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley was past her “startup” period. Now as an independent journalist, Lemon has fully embraced her liberal persona with shameless anti-Trump comments.

AFTER SAYING THERE WAS NO CRIME IN THE MINNESOTA CHURCH CASE, DON LEMON IS DEFYING, VOWS HE WILL ‘WON’T BE PUNISHED’

The former news anchor has been thrust into the spotlight in recent weeks after being dragged into a legal battle against Trump’s Justice Department.

Lemon went viral in January for livestreaming an attack on a Minnesota church by far-left anti-ICE agitators. He insisted he was working as a journalist to cover the disrupted church service, but the Justice Department believes otherwise and lumps him in with other protesters and accuses them of conspiring to deprive them of religious liberty rights and violating the FACE Act.

He pleaded not guilty and used the incident to further attack the Trump administration.

Jim Acosta

Jim Acosta was CNN’s White House correspondent during President Trump’s first administration, later serving as a mainstay for the network. (Variety via John Nacion/Getty Images)

Jim Acosta caused trouble for Trump while serving as CNN’s White House correspondent during the president’s first term in office. Like Lemon, Acosta was accused by conservatives of having a liberal bias during his tenure at CNN.

As Acosta left the network in January 2025, he used his farewell monologue to deliver a message about the state of journalism.

“Don’t give in to lies. Don’t give in to fear. Hold on to the truth and hope,” the presenter said. “Save this message even if you have to pull out your phone. I will not bow to lies. I will not bow to fear,” he continued. “Post this on your social media so people can hear from you too.”

Acosta now has a daily YouTube show that regularly features Trump foes like Rosie O’Donnell, Kathy Griffin and far-left podcaster Jennifer Welch.

WHITE HOUSE CONDEMNS JIM ACOSTA AS A ‘DISGRESSIVE PERSON’ AFTER JOKED ABOUT TRUMP’S DEAD EX-WIFE

He raised eyebrows when he pressed for gun control by airing an interview with an AI avatar of Joaquin Oliver, a Parkland shooting victim. Acosta also wore a frog hat on “State of the Swamp,” a counter show to Trump’s State of the Union address last month that was streamed live on Acosta’s YouTube channel.

Last year, Acosta angered the White House with a joke he made about the grave site of Ivana Trump, the president’s deceased first wife and the mother of Trump’s three children: Don Jr., Ivanka and Eric.

“How many immigrants did she marry? She buried one on a golf course in New Jersey. Wasn’t she buried on the first hole or the second tee or something like that? Immigrants always do jobs that Americans don’t want to do,” Acosta said of Ivana, who is buried at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt called Acosta “a disgrace” in a statement to Fox News Digital.

CLICK TO REACH THE FOX NEWS APPLICATION

Fox News Digital’s Alexander Hall contributed to this report.