Fired News Anchors Who Wouldn't Just Go Away
In an opinion piece for The Washington Post, editor Leonard Downie Jr. — who worked on The Post's history-making story about the Watergate cover-up — suggested that the way forward for the journalistic profession is to move beyond outdated ideas of "objectivity." Instead of seeing nonpartisanship as a virtue, Downie wrote, newsrooms should focus on building trust with readers. Joseph Kahn, executive editor of The New York Times, told Downie, "When the evidence is there, we should be clear and direct with our audience that we don't think there are multiple sides to this question, this is a falsehood. And the person repeating this falsehood over and over is guilty of lying."
In other words, objectivity shouldn't mean that both sides have an equal claim to the truth. It means that journalists should be clear with their audience when someone is not telling the truth. If the news media wants to get back in the public's good graces, Downie says, that kind of honesty is essential.
That also may mean taking a look at their own staff. If we want to trust in what's being reported, we need to trust in our reporters. When a journalist breaks the public trust in a significant way — through lying, perhaps, or by behaving in a way that reflects poorly on their workplace — they get the boot. Sometimes, though, they merely jump ship to another outlet. Here are some fired news anchors who wouldn't just go away.
Sexual misconduct lawsuits didn't stop Bill O'Reilly from launching No Spin News
Longtime conservative firebrand Bill O'Reilly spent many years on Fox News as the host of "The O'Reilly Factor," a show where he tore into whatever cultural issues of the day he felt were most pressing to the lives of Americans. In 2017, O'Reilly turned out to be a few months ahead of a major cultural issue. While the #MeToo movement wouldn't really kick off until that fall, in April, The New York Times reported that O'Reilly had been accused of numerous incidents of sexual misconduct.
"Just like other prominent and controversial people, I'm vulnerable to lawsuits from individuals who want me to pay them to avoid negative publicity," he said in a statement, referring to several lawsuits that had been settled to the tune of millions. While O'Reilly denied the allegations, later that month, The New York Times reported that he'd been forced out of his job.
O'Reilly pivoted, and that same year, he launched "No Spin News." His new series has been everything from a YouTube channel to a TV show, and it's one that has bounced around to several networks. In an interview with Tangle, O'Reilly crowed about the influence he now has. "The vibrance of presenting information to the American people is on social media," he said. "We do very, very well here at BillOReilly.com, and we make a terrific living, and I don't have to answer to anybody."
Dan Rather has a Substack newsletter
Dan Rather is a legendary journalist from the early days of television. He was on air reporting throughout the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and its aftermath. He climbed the ranks at CBS News over the ensuing decades, becoming one of the most trusted names in news. That all fell apart in 2004, however, when Rather reported on a story involving President George W. Bush's service in the Texas National Guard, revealing that Bush went AWOL. The documents that the story was sourced from turned out to be faulty, sparking a major controversy.
"We reported a true story," he insisted years later to The Hollywood Reporter. "We didn't do it perfectly. We made some mistakes of getting to the truth. But that didn't change the truth of what we reported." That wasn't enough, and Rather was made to disavow the story before being pushed out of CBS as a result.
Rather refused to disappear, however, and he's remained in the news space thanks to shows like "The Big Interview with Dan Rather," which aired on AXS TV. He also has an ongoing Substack newsletter called Steady, and he's a regular participant in newsworthy conversations on X, formerly Twitter. "You either get engaged, and you get engaged on the new terms, or you're out of the game," he said on "CBS Sunday Morning" in 2024. "I wanted to stay in the game."
After their affair, Amy Robach and T.J. Holmes started a podcast
In late 2022, news broke that "Good Morning America" anchors Amy Robach and T.J. Holmes had split from their respective spouses and were instead seeing one another. The resulting media frenzy was too much for ABC, and they were let go from their positions at the morning show. "After several productive conversations with Amy Robach and T.J. Holmes about different options, we all agreed it's best for everyone that they move on from ABC News," the network said in a statement (via Variety).
A year after they were let go, they launched "Amy & T.J.," a podcast where Robach and Holmes detail the way their romance has evolved since the scandal. In the pod's first episode (per YouTube), Holmes lamented, "The best way to sum us up, Amy and T.J., is that we're the folks who lost the jobs we love because we love each other."
As of 2024, the podcast is still going strong. In January, Holmes laid bare her feelings about their relationship several years removed from the headline-making affair, pondering (via YouTube), "Lust is a feeling, but love is a choice, I believe, and I have chosen to love you." Holmes said she doesn't feel pressured to stay together because of the public attention, but she does still miss her old job. She explained, "I feel the pressure of our careers that I believe were unfairly taken from us."
Megyn Kelly lost her NBC contract amid a blackface scandal
Megyn Kelly made her name on Fox News, but in 2017 she turned down a CNN contract and moved to NBC. Kelly hosted the 9 a.m. hour of "The TODAY Show," rebranded as "Megyn Kelly TODAY," and she attempted to smooth down her sharp public persona with morning-television-friendly musings. "The truth is, I am kind of done with politics for now," she said on her first episode.
In October 2018, Kelly came out in favor of blackface, telling her audience that she didn't see the issue as it related to Halloween costumes. The next day, she opened her show with an apology. "I was wrong, and I am sorry," she said. The apology wasn't enough, and the show was yanked. A few months later, NBC announced in a statement (via NBC News) that they had parted ways with the controversial anchor. "The parties have resolved their differences, and Megyn Kelly is no longer an employee of NBC," they said. Reportedly, Kelly still received the rest of her $69 million contract.
Kelly has gone back to politics and pivoted to podcasting. In 2021, she announced that she would be producing a daily show through SiriusXM. Reflecting on a year on air (via YouTube), Kelly said, "Love love love being live on the air with Sirius. That's always so fun for me, as somebody who came from, you know, a career of live broadcasting."
Matt Lauer thinks it's time for a return
Matt Lauer was a controversial figure even before he was fired from "The TODAY Show," after multiple #MeToo accusations involving a button in his desk that locked his office door. Remember when he interviewed Anne Hathaway about "Les Miserables," opening with a remark about a photo taken up her dress? "Nice to see you. Seen a lot of you lately," he cracked (via YouTube). "What's the lesson learned from something like that?" he asked, as though it were her fault that a man violated her privacy.
Matt Lauer was axed from his anchor gig on "The Today Show" after a colleague complained to management. "On Monday night, we received a detailed complaint from a colleague about inappropriate sexual behavior in the workplace by Matt Lauer. It represented, after serious review, a clear violation of our company's standards," said NBC News chairman Andy Lack in a statement (via NBC News). A few years later, Lauer showed up in Ronan Farrow's book "Catch and Kill," accused of assaulting a colleague. He denied the accusations in a statement to Variety, insisting, "It showed terrible judgment on my part, but it was completely mutual and consensual."
In April 2024, sources told Us Weekly that Lauer was planning an imminent return to television. "He wants to be relevant again," the source said, as Lauer has spent the years since his firing relatively quietly. "Don't expect an apology, he's the one who feels is owed an apology."
Don Lemon launched The Don Lemon Show online
CNN anchor Don Lemon was let go in a surprise move in April 2023. He took to X, formerly Twitter, to announce that he'd been fired from his regular gig anchoring his own show, writing, "I was informed this morning by my agent that I have been terminated. I am stunned. After 17 years at CNN, I would have thought that someone in management would have had the decency to tell me directly."
In June, he addressed his dismissal in an interview with ABC24 Memphis, reflecting that he had been let go for refusing to buy in to CNN's project of moving to centrism. "I don't believe in platforming liars and bigots, and you know insurrectionists and election deniers, and putting them on the same footing as people who are telling the truth ... I think that would be a dereliction of journalistic duty," he said.
Don Lemon hit the Hamptons. The following year, he launched an online series called "The Don Lemon Show" with an interview with Elon Musk, a man who has himself platformed racist ideas on social media. Lemon made headlines after claiming that Musk offered him a deal to bring the show to X, before going back on the terms they'd agreed to after the interview turned out less than flattering. "Apparently free speech absolutism doesn't apply when it comes to questions about him from people like me," Lemon said (via the Associated Press).
Chris Cuomo has a show on NewsNation
Several news anchors on this list were fired as the result of sexual assault allegations. CNN's Chris Cuomo is among them, but the allegations against the anchor weren't the only reason he was fired. Instead, Cuomo was axed after it was revealed that he was involved in stories about allegations against his brother, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. "When Chris admitted to us that he had offered advice to his brother's staff, he broke our rules and we acknowledged that publicly," CNN said in a statement. He'd declined to report on the allegations on his own show, but behind the scenes, he was apparently passing information about coverage back to the governor's office. "This is not how I want my time at CNN to end," the anchor said in a statement.
Chris Cuomo sued the network for $125 million, in a lawsuit that has stretched on for years. In January 2024, Law360 reported that his efforts to get an arbitrator removed from the case had failed. He opened up about his firing in an interview on "Open Book with Anthony Scaramucci," revealing, "I had to accept [it] because I was going to kill everybody, including myself."
Chris now has a show on NewsNation, called simply "Cuomo." The Washington Post noted that the new news network isn't exactly taking off, and that re-runs of "Blue Bloods" outrank its news programs. Former CNN anchor Carol Costello said, "I applaud NewsNation for trying."
Pittsburgh anchor Wendy Bell has been fired multiple times
In 2016, Pittsburgh anchor Wendy Bell was fired after a racist Facebook post about a mass shooting. "You needn't be a criminal profiler to draw a mental sketch of the killers who broke so many hearts two weeks ago Wednesday. They are young black men, likely in their teens or in their early 20s," she wrote (via The New York Times). "They have multiple siblings from multiple fathers and their mothers work multiple jobs." As a result, she was let go from her job at WTAE.
Instead of taking accountability, Bell sued and claimed to have been fired for being white. The lawsuit elevated her situation from a local matter to a national news story. "Had Ms. Bell written the same comments about white criminal suspects or had her race not been white, (WTAE) would not have fired her," the lawsuit read, per Reuters.
Bell was hired by a local radio station, but in 2020 was once again fired. This time, Bell was axed for encouraging National Park employees to execute protesters. "My easy solution for the park rangers, and hopefully snipers, who are hopefully going to be watching for this, is to shoot on sight," she said (via Pittsburgh City Paper). She now runs "Wendy Bell Radio" through her own app, where she peddles election-denying conspiracy theories. When she interviewed former president Donald Trump in 2022 (via TribLive), he told her, "We won the election by a lot. You understand it."
Keith Olbermann stuck around after MSNBC fired him
Keith Olbermann was once the face of MSNBC. He hosted a show called "Countdown," counting down the top news stories of the day and ending with a segment where he named someone the "Worst Person in the World." The show was a hit for the network, but Olbermann was fired in early 2011 amid rumors of disputes with executives over the tone of his coverage, which could often be combative.
In a Rolling Stone interview a few months later, he revealed that he was bringing "Countdown" to Current TV, an Al Gore-led network that was hoping to be a new, even more liberal alternative to MSNBC. "We're not doing this new show to find a place for me to have a home — we're going to do this right," Olbermann insisted. "We're going to take MSNBC's business away from them — that's the idea, to do it better."
The Current TV venture didn't work out; he was fired from that job, too, after less than a year back on air. In a statement (via Politico), founders Gore and Joel Hyatt wrote, "Current was also founded on the values of respect, openness, collegiality, and loyalty to our viewers. Unfortunately these values are no longer reflected in our relationship with Keith Olbermann."
He's since brought "Countdown" back as a podcast. In August 2023, he wrote on X, formerly Twitter, "Between podcast downloads and verified YT views Countdown crossed the 3,000,000 audience plateau."
Charlie Rose has an online show after his PBS firing
Longtime CBS and PBS anchor Charlie Rose was fired at the height of the #MeToo movement, finally getting the chop after years of sexual harassment incidents became public. Many allegations were detailed in a Washington Post exposé, including inappropriate touching, lewd phone calls, and more. "It is essential that these women know I hear them and that I deeply apologize for my inappropriate behavior. I am greatly embarrassed," Rose said in a statement to the paper, though he insisted that not all of the allegations were true.
The apology wasn't enough, and the next day, both PBS and CBS cut ties. "PBS expects all the producers we work with to provide a workplace where people feel safe and are treated with dignity and respect," the network said in a statement to The New York Times.
Since 2022, he's been hosting an online show called "Charlie Rose Conversations." He often appears virtually, digitally inserted over a black background. On the show, Rose speaks with high-profile people like billionaire Warren Buffett. In a statement on his website (via The Hill), Rose wrote, "It is a step in a journey to engage the most interesting people and explore the most compelling ideas in the world."
Tucker Carlson took his show online
In the aftermath of the contentious 2020 presidential election, Fox News host Tucker Carlson repeatedly promoted debunked conspiracy theories on his show, claiming that the election had been stolen. Furthermore, Carlson placed blame with Dominion, a company that makes voting machines. That wound up being a costly accusation; after a defamation lawsuit, Fox News was ordered to pay the company a staggering $787 million.
Shortly thereafter, Carlson was given the boot. There still hasn't been an official explanation as to why, but Brian Stelter's reporting in Vanity Fair suggested that the Dominion lawsuit was only part of the reason he was fired. He apparently liked to call people the c-word, for one. "It was always going to end badly. We knew we were burning too bright," one producer told Stelter.
He launched a show called "Tucker on X," posted directly to Elon Musk's social media platform. In his introductory video, Carlson warned viewers about the misleading nature of much reporting that leaves out important facts. "The best you can hope for in the news business at this point is the freedom to tell the fullest truth that you can. But there are always limits," he said. "And you know that if you bump up against those limits often enough, you will be fired for it." Positioning himself as a brave truth-teller seems to have worked for Carlson; in 2023, he launched a proprietary subscription network, letting viewers pay him directly.