Fox News Exec John Moody Exits After Olympics Column’s False Ring

Longtime Fox News executive John Moody, whose pre-Winter Olympics opinion column last month suggested the U.S. Olympic Committee would like to change the Olympics motto “from ‘Faster, Higher, Stronger’ to ‘Darker, Gayer, Different'”, has left the company.

FNC said today in a statement that Moody, the EVP and Executive Editor and a former Time magazine bureau chief, “has retired from FOX News.”

At the time Fox News said the column, which came out ahead of the start of the Winter Games in PyeongChang, “does not reflect the views or values of FOX News and has been removed.” Its content had drawn quick fire online.

“In Olympics, let’s focus on the winner of the race – not the race of the winner,” Moody wrote, taking issue with a USOC official who recently praised the diversity of the U.S. Olympic delegation. He added that “Insisting that sports bow to political correctness by assigning teams quotas for race, religion or sexuality is like saying that professional basketball goals will be worth four points if achieved by a minority in that sport – white guys, for instance – instead of the two or three points awarded to black players, who make up 81 percent of the NBA. Any plans to fix that disparity? Didn’t think so.”

According to an insider, the column was not vetted before it was posted; the source blamed editors “too deferential” to Moody “given his longevity” at the network. In 2016, Moody was among those whose names were being bandied about as a possible Roger Ailes replacement.