Former ABC News correspondent Terry Moran says a 2021 “Nightline” investigation examining the COVID-19 lab-leak theory was dramatically rewritten on the day it was scheduled to air after network review that he was told included Anthony Fauci.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
Former ABC News correspondent Terry Moran is alleging that Anthony Fauci was involved in a last-minute review of a 2021 “Nightline” investigation into the possibility that COVID-19 originated from a laboratory, leaving the finished version of the report so altered that Moran said he considered it “incomprehensible.”
Moran recounted the episode during an appearance on “The Fifth Column” podcast, describing it as an instance in which he experienced what he called the “heavy hand of censorship” while working at the Disney-owned network.
According to Fox News, Moran said the episode occurred in early 2021, when public discussion of a possible laboratory origin for the coronavirus was gaining attention among researchers, government officials and commentators.
Moran said he had been following online discussions by people he considered “smart and serious” who were examining whether the virus could have escaped from a laboratory. ABC’s “Nightline” subsequently allowed him to investigate the issue for a television report.
The resulting piece, Moran said, included interviews with scientists as well as officials from the Trump administration and was intended to examine competing explanations rather than declare that the laboratory theory had been proven.
“We broke a little news that that lab had been funded by the Chinese military, despite the ‘Bat Lady’ [Chinese virologist Shi Zhengli] saying no, it hadn’t… And we kind of laid it out,” Moran said. “And at the end of the day, my own personal feeling was, you know, it’s probably a little bit more likely it’s natural. But if you told me it had leaked from the lab, fine. It’s probably not cooked up. It’s probably not a ‘Frankenvirus.’”
Moran said the situation changed abruptly on the day the segment was scheduled to be broadcast.
“And the day that it’s supposed to air, it gets reviewed, and it comes back to me, and it is incomprehensible,” Moran continued. “And I had never been angrier. I’m in the booth–”
Podcast co-host Michael Moynihan then asked Moran who had been involved in the review.
“Are these lawyers?” podcast co-host Michael Moynihan asked.
“Lawyers, standards and, I was told, Fauci,” Moran responded. “And I said, ‘I can’t do this.’ And they’re going to air and it’s a 15-minute piece or whatever. And I’m cursing and screaming in the the booth.”
Moran’s account indicates that the report had already been completed and was approaching airtime when it went through an internal review process involving ABC lawyers and standards personnel. Moran said he was also told Fauci was part of that review.
His description does not establish precisely what Fauci personally reviewed, what changes he may have requested or whether ABC independently made the revisions, but Moran’s allegation places the former federal health official inside the network’s review process for a report dealing directly with the origins of COVID-19.
At the time, Fauci was one of the most prominent federal officials involved in the government’s response to the pandemic and in public discussions surrounding the origins of the virus.
Moran emphasized that his original reporting did not claim that COVID-19 had definitively escaped from a laboratory. He said his own assessment at the time leaned somewhat toward a natural origin, while still concluding that the lab-leak possibility deserved serious consideration.
The investigation nevertheless included information Moran considered significant, including what he described as evidence connecting the laboratory to funding from the Chinese military despite denials from Chinese virologist Shi Zhengli, widely known as the “Bat Lady” because of her work involving bat coronaviruses.
According to Moran, the central purpose of the piece was to present the evidence and competing possibilities to viewers rather than reach a predetermined conclusion.
His account of what happened afterward suggests that the editorial review substantially changed the report immediately before broadcast, provoking an unusually strong reaction from Moran inside the production booth.
Moran’s recollection can be heard in the full video of his “Fifth Column” discussion, where he describes both the reporting process and the dispute surrounding the final version of the segment.
The allegation adds a new dimension to the continuing debate over how major news organizations handled discussion of the COVID-19 lab-leak theory during the early stages of the pandemic.
Rather than saying ABC prohibited him from investigating the subject from the outset, Moran described a different sequence: the network initially authorized the story, allowed him to interview scientists and Trump administration officials and permitted the piece to proceed toward broadcast before a final review dramatically altered what viewers would ultimately see.
For Moran, the most consequential element was who he says he was told participated in that process.
When Moynihan specifically asked whether lawyers were responsible for the review, Moran identified “Lawyers, standards and, I was told, Fauci,” before describing his anger as the revised report moved toward airtime.
His account now raises questions about the extent to which an outside government official may have been consulted by ABC News on a report examining a scientific and political controversy in which that official was himself a central public figure.
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