Former HBO’s “Real Sports” reporter Bernard Goldberg said Tuesday that he quit the network because of the “cowardice” of the people who run the show, whose political views “range from liberal to far-left.”
Goldberg appeared on Bill O’Reilly’s show, where he clarified his reasons for unceremoniously leaving the show “after 22 years of working there.”
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“So why’d you quit?” O’Reilly asked Goldberg.
“There are seven correspondents on the show. You are looking at the diversity on the show. I literally am diversity,” the 75-year-old journalist responded. “The other six … range from liberal to far-left. That’s okay in their private lives. I have no issue with that whatsoever.”
Goldberg recalled several incidents where right-leaning opinions were not allowed on the show. In particular, Goldberg said his suggestion of doing a profile on Jason Whitlock, a black conservative sportswriter, was nixed by Bryant Gumbel, who led the show. “There were other examples like that,” the award-winning journalist added.
The show famously pulled Goldberg’s segment on transgender athletes in September 2020 after one of the participants no longer wanted it to be aired, according to Mediaite.
“That transgender story was an example of down the middle, both sides of the story, nuanced, fair play journalism. There was no ground for a lawsuit,” Goldberg said. “But … cowardice led the people who run the show to say, ‘we don’t want to run this because this might cause us trouble’.”
The show producers were afraid of a “hashtag campaign” against them, Goldberg noted. (RELATED: CEO Of CNN Parent Company Regrets Saying The Pandemic Is ‘Really Good For Ratings’)
He also reiterated his support for a Sacramento Kings announcer who lost his job for tweeting “All Lives Matter.” Goldberg’s remarks on the show’s year-end roundtable episode received ample pushback from other correspondents, including Gumbel.
“I wasn’t asking Bryant about the sensitivity of what he said, the timing of what he said. My question to Bryant Gumbel was: ‘do you think he should’ve lost his job over that?’,” Goldberg told O’Reilly.
“I have no problem with anybody’s personal politics, but when it intrudes on the integrity of journalism, I have a problem. I had enough, I said that’s it, I’m gone,” Goldberg explained.