Moran, Mountainhead and Muck Rack

The last few weeks have raised new concerns about the future of news and society. For alliteration’s sake, let’s call it the 3Ms -- Moran, Mountainhead and Muck Rack.

When ABC News put longtime journalist Terry Moran on leave and subsequently opted not to renew his contract, the backlash was swift. Not against Moran. All over social media people criticized the network for kowtowing to Trump – again – and stifling those who spoke truth to power.

Now, as a former journalist, I agreed with the initial move to put him on leave for a social media post calling the White House’s Stephen Miller “a world-class hater,” among other things. (Some of you may know the term “world class” makes me crazy because it’s often used to describe people and products that are fairly generic and mundane. No notes on this use.) As journalists and not commentators, we are supposed to maintain impartiality, reflecting neither favor nor opposition to those we cover.

But firing a guy who has been a steady hand at the network for 28 years and who just did an admirable job interviewing Trump on his 100-day mark seems excessive. From the network’s perspective and its parent company Walt Disney Co., I’m sure they wanted to avoid yet another lawsuit from Trump, having already paid him $15 million to settle a defamation suit involving Good Morning America anchor George Stephanoupolus. By the way, he’s still employed.

On social media and even in personal texts from friends, news of Moran’s dismissal garnered strong criticism, with people calling the decision an “abomination” and swearing off the network while lauding Moran as “a hero.” Moran announced a few days later he’d moved to Substack, where he already has more than 96,000 subscribers.

The whole situation has me wondering: Is it the media’s job to remain objective at a time when the very fabric of American democracy is threatened? Should news organizations cling to traditional norms when the federal government itself no longer adheres to its own practices or regulations?  Does clinging to such facades make the news media as useful as the orchestra on the Titanic, all of whom went down with the ship?

Historically the tension between partisanship and media oppression has been a constant. Early journalism often reflected the views of owners and publishers like media barons Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst in the late 1800s/early 1900s and their Yellow Journalism, and even all the way back to Ben Franklin’s Pennsylvania Gazette in the 1700s. A short-lived section of the 1798 Alien and Sedition Acts made it a crime to voice opposition to presidential acts and even Abe Lincoln went after Northern news editors who appeared to side with the Confederacy.

One more tidbit: Fox News has held the title of highest-rated cable network for more than two decades. And while I’m not advocating for news organizations to mimic their approach to news entertainment, it begs a deeper question: Can media organizations remain a viable business when the public wants something else?

Against this troubling backdrop, HBO released a satirical movie called “Mountainhead,” focused on four tech bros who gather at a lavish home atop a mountain after one, an apparent caricature of Elon Musk, unleashes AI tools that cause global pandemonium and destruction. Governments fall, people die, fires erupt – all while they enjoy skiing, drinking and plotting a global takeover amid amazing snowy views.

I won’t spoil the ending. But if you fear for the future right now, you may not want to watch it. Throughout the movie, as they see news of what’s happening globally, they’reguesing which are real and which are fake.

That reality is no longer a movie. Every day, there are deepfakes on social media about public figures and businesses.  Just last night, I saw a photo of Obama wearing a No Kings t-shirt he clearly hadn’t worn posted on Threads, with a ton of comments believing the photo to be real.

Deepfakes have seen explosive growth. AuthenticID’s 2025 State of Identity Fraud Report that surveyed businesses found a 46% year-over-year increase in deepfake and generative AI fraud. Some 96% of companies see the misuse of these technologies as a threat to their business.  Last week we saw a number of deepfakes circulating about the deportation protests in LA, some repurposing 2020 footage of police cars burning and others showing National Guardsman talking about gassing protestors.

Interestingly enough, the media shares these concerns. In Muck Rack’s recently released State of Journalism Report found that disinformation was the top concern for journalists at 36%, with public trust in journalism and lack of finding right behind it at 28% each.

That makes a few things more essential and existential than ever for businesses and communications pros:

·       Active listening across all online, chatbot and customer service platforms is critical to catching risk earlier. In addition to using AI and other tools to have always-on listening, enlist employees, customers and others to exponentially increase reconnaissance capability.

·       Educate and empower every employee to report anything suspicious they see out in the wild and make clear specifically whom needs to be contacted. It’s a good idea to set up a separate email account to catch all such alerts and monitor that email address 24/7.

·       Build trusted relationships across all stakeholders so they are the first to jump to your defense and call out mis- and disinformation in social media forums. Invest in the time and energy to keep these relations strong through incentives, creative outreach and more. Remember, it’s much harder to burn a wet house.

·       Clarify what you stand for and live up to it. Numerous companies have been falling down in this area lately evidence Target and Bark, among others. Fearful of backlash by critics of DEI policies, they’ve scrapped they’re previously very public values and muddied what they stand for and against. With this kind of confusion, it’s much easier for false narratives to appear believable

·       Respond immediately. While it’s impossible to respond to everything all the time, it is incumbent to throw water quickly on fires erupting before it becomes much harder to contain. If a fake is taking off, get head of it on every news platform, through emails and texts to clients and customers, as well as your own website to ensure it doesn’t take root. Be anywhere someone might be looking for information about you.

Moran, Mountainhead and Muck Rack, they all make one thing clear: Traditions, technology and threats have changed dramatically. Will we?