How AT&T helped build far-right One America News

[Nevilledog]

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Jonathan O'Connell
@jocwapo
Phenomenal reporting from Reuters here shows that AT&T is responsible for the founding and for putting up ~90 percent of the revenue of OAN News.

Special Report: How AT&T helped build far-right One America News
America’s top telecom giant nurtured OAN, the pro-Trump news channel now at the center of a bitter national divide over politics and truth.
reuters.com
6:00 AM · Oct 6, 2021

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-oneamerica-att/

One America News, the far-right network whose fortunes and viewership rose amid the triumph and tumult of the Trump administration, has flourished with support from a surprising source: AT&T Inc, the world's largest communications company.

A Reuters review of court records shows the role AT&T played in creating and funding OAN, a network that continues to spread conspiracy theories about the 2020 election and the COVID-19 pandemic.

OAN founder and chief executive Robert Herring Sr has testified that the inspiration to launch OAN in 2013 came from AT&T executives.

“They told us they wanted a conservative network,” Herring said during a 2019 deposition seen by Reuters. “They only had one, which was Fox News, and they had seven others on the other [leftwing] side. When they said that, I jumped to it and built one.”

*snip*

[pidge]

1. Who cares....just don't watch it.

[ornotna]

3. The head in the sand strategy.

Good call.

[Initech]

4. Follow the money.

Find out who's bankrolling these scumbags - it's our way of finding out who's responsible for this mess.

[JHB]

2. You can tell how bonkers Right they are by the "seven others on the other [leftwing] side" comment

Conservative "media critics" like Reed Irvine taught me back around 1980 that when they speak of "liberal bias" and "liberal media" they mean "failed to chearlead a conservative agenda."

Mind you, they didn't intend to teach me that. I just paid attention to what they counted as "liberal" and what they considered "fair and balanced." It didn't match up with reality.

And the fact that they're executives of a major corporation is a sign of just how dangerous they've become.

[themaguffin]

5. LOL, what are the "seven left wing" networks...?