ABC News today essentially fired senior correspondent Terry Moran after he wrote derisive comments on social media, as Ethics Alarms discussed here. Moran had already been suspended for making gratuitous personal comments about the character of Stephen Miller, the deputy White House chief of staff, and President Trump, using the term “world-class hater” to describe each.

Moran had worked at ABC News for 28 years, and his contract was up for renewal.

“We are at the end of our agreement with Terry Moran, and based on his recent post — which was a clear violation of ABC News policies — we have made the decision to not renew,” the network said in a statement. “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.”

Riiiight.

The move is hardly a surprise. Moran had committed the cardinal sin of making public the vile bias that he and most of his colleagues in broadcast news, quite possibly all of them, have been wielding for a long, long time. That’s a no-no. As ABC’s wildly dishonest statement demonstrated, their reporters aren’t supposed to reveal their inability to be objective as openly as Moran did.

Like all of the Axis media, ABC tries to maintain the fiction that it isn’t a Democratic propaganda operative, which it certainly is. Is Moran more obviously biased than, say, David Muir and Lindsay Davis, whose pro-Harris debate moderation represented a new low in a category that already was lying prone on the metaphorical basement floor? How about the pre-biased George Stephanopoulos, who was originally recruited from Team Clinton yet still was permitted to interview his pal Hillary repeatedly in “news” interviews? Who believes that he isn’t a loyal, indeed committed Democrat? Then there is Martha Raddatz, who let Joe Biden, then Vice-President and not yet demented, interrupt,mug, and generally cheat his way through his debate with Romney’s weenie VP choice Paul Ryan, who foolishly tried to be civil. As I wrote at the time, Ryan should have moderated where Raddatz refused, and embarrassed Joe with a tart, “Are you gong to keep sighing and rolling your eyes while I’m talking, or are you able to behave like an adult?”

Terry Moran had to be sacrificed to perpetuate the lie that ABC is “committed to delivering straightforward, trusted journalism.” This means that the firing is that odd hybrid, an apparently ethical act performed for an unethical purpose.

Of course, we know the Axis will claim that the Trump Administration was engaging in “censorship” by pointing out that ABC was employing a senior correspondent whose animus toward the President had just been made explicit and undeniable, and implying that continuing to employ such a reporter might have consequences ABC might regret. As I noted in the previous Moran kerfuffle piece, the White House has no obligation to cater to a news organization that has openly declared itself an enemy of the President, like MSNBC. Trump I should have told CNN that its choice was to either have a professional White House correspondent (that is, not Jim Accosta) or no White House correspondent at all.

So to return to the headline above, what is the ethical significance of Moran’s firing? Why, there is none. Moran’s tweets were unprofessional and irresponsible: he deserved to be fired. ABC’s explanation of the firing was disingenuous, and designed to perpetuate a falsehood. It does not hold its reporters to the “highest standards of objectivity, fairness and professionalism,” but flagrant bias, unfairness and foolishness like Moran’s are impossible to ignore. Firing Moran won’t lessen ABC’s bias even a smidgen.