Daily Caller fires opinion editor over Milo controversy

The Daily Caller has fired its opinion editor amid controversy over the site’s publishing of a column by right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos, the editor-in-chief confirmed to a CNN reporter Saturday.

Geoffrey Ingersoll, the right-leaning news site’s top editor, confirmed Saturday to CNN’s Oliver Darcy that opinion editor Rob Mariani was fired. The confirmation came shortly after Yiannopoulos posted about his column ending on Facebook.

Daily Caller Editor-in-Chief Geoffrey Ingersoll confirms to me that the site has fired its opinion editor over this Milo fiasco.

— Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) November 4, 2017

“Sad news: The Daily Caller has caved to pressure and cancelled my weekly column after a day, claiming, falsely, they never planned to run weekly contributions from me,” Yiannopoulos wrote Saturday. “The Daily Caller is also throwing its opinion editor Rob Mariani under the bus: we are told he has just been fired. I’m disappointed, to put it mildly.”

{mosads}

The Daily Caller published a column from Yiannopoulos on Friday that ripped Hollywood and actor Kevin Spacey for the explosive allegations that Spacey made sexual advances towards a young teenage actor, as well as created a “toxic” work environment on the set of Netflix’s “House of Cards.”

In the piece, Yiannopoulos, who is gay, accused the political left of holding a double standard for left-leaning celebrities.

The column, according to Yiannopoulos, was meant to be a part of a series, but Daily Caller publisher and co-founder Neil Patel called it a one-off column and said he had not been hired.

Yiannopoulos responded by posting personal emails with Mariani online, showing that he had agreed to write a 600 to 1,000 word weekly column for the site.