Dan Abrams Renews ABC News Deal, Defends Staying in the ‘Maligned Mainstream Media’

Dan Abrams has revealed he’s staying with ABC News after signing a new deal and making the case that broadcast journalism remains vital, even as the “maligned mainstream media” faces constant attacks.

The new contract will see Abrams continue his role as ABC News chief legal analyst and, speaking as he closed out the Thursday edition of his Sirius XM show, he defended his decision and the “hard and admirable” work done in network newsrooms.

“So I have a personal announcement to make. I recently signed a new contract with ABC News,” said Abrams. “Now typically, the chief legal analyst re-signing a contract isn’t really news. I get that. But it feels different now.”

As the founder of Mediaite and a veteran of both traditional and digital platforms, Abrams acknowledged the cultural headwinds against mainstream outlets.

He continued: “It’s really easy to sit on the outside and critique these organizations and highlight errors or perceived errors. And to be clear, I do that sometimes too. Heck, I own Mediaite, the site that covers media, but actually being in the trenches, trying to gather and break news – what an ABC News does every day – is hard and admirable. Much harder than just getting to cherry-pick potential issues from the outside.”

He added: “The political coverage is also what creates the controversy, but that is just a piece of what a mainstream news operation does and here is the most important point, despite all the sniping, the public appreciates it.”

Abrams spotlighted that ABC’s flagship World News with David Muir “isn’t just the most popular news show in America, it is regularly the most popular show on all of television.”

“Anyone who says broadcast news is dead isn’t paying attention,” he argued.

Just last week, President Donald Trump branded ABC, alongside NBC, as two of “the most biased” networks in America and suggested the FCC revoke their broadcast licenses.

Abrams defended the network against general pushback increasingly experienced by mainstream media outlets, having seen “from the inside how hard all the people there work to try to get stories right.”

“Do they always 100% succeed? No, but it’s the exception, not the rule, when a true mistake is made,” he continued, noting that many simply “don’t trust” or “like” entities like ABC News.

“But they also deserve credit they rarely get these days,” he insisted. “Does that mean that I agree with every decision and report on ABC News? Absolutely not, but I don’t agree with every decision and report on Mediaite.com and I own it!”

Abrams said he left his nightly NewsNation program because of the grind, but stressed that his choice to remain at ABC was about principle, not necessity: “In a new media world where so many are leaving big news organizations… I am keeping a foot in. Not because I need to. But because I want to.”

“Some people who I work with in one venue won’t and don’t like what I do in another, but this is consistent with what I preach on a daily basis – acceptance of differing views,” he said, closing his monologue by framing his role as a test of remaining “intellectually honest” in a polarized media environment.

Accusations of bias, he said, often come from “both defense and prosecutors and from both sides of the political aisle.”

While conceding that “balance isn’t really what sells in the new media world,” Abrams argued that ABC News still expects his “best effort at fairness” in legal analysis — and that, he suggested, remains worth defending.

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