Fox News Executive Vice President John Moody has retired from the network, weeks after a controversial column where he criticized the U.S. Olympic Committee for being concerned with having a “Darker, Gayer and Different” Olympic team. As opposed to fielding a team with the best group of athletes.
A spokeswoman at Fox News confirmed Moody’s retirement, according to Variety.
The trouble started as the Winter Olympics in PeyongChang, South Korea, geared up. Moody penned an editorial criticizing the Olympics committee for using the games as a platform for advancing a “diversity” agenda, instead of keeping their minds on the sports they were ostensibly in South Korea to perform.
In his February 8 Op-Ed, Moody pleaded for sportsmen to forget about race and sexual orientation and to focus only on the superior abilities athletes bring to the games. Moody noted that the motto of the Olympics is “Faster, Higher, Stronger,” but that too many were more interested in turning the games “Darker, Gayer, Different.” This, he said, is not a very good way to win medals.
Moody may have been right at least as far as winning medals goes. The U.S. delegation won fewer medals than ever at the 2018 Winter Olympics. With the U.S. taking just 23 medals, the result was widely seen as disappointing.
But, Moody’s column immediately drew criticism from LGBTQ supporters and in short order Fox News pulled the editorial saying that the piece did not “reflect the views or values of FOX News.”
According to Variety, “Moody had been with Fox News since its inception in 1996. He was closely associated with founder and former CEO Roger Ailes who was ousted in mid-2016 amid a sexual harassment scandal.”
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston.
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