AT&T a key player in far-right TV: report
One America News Network, the pro-Trump, far-right media outlet known for promoting conspiracy theories about COVID-19 and the 2020 presidential election, got most of its funding from telecom giant AT&T, according to an investigative report.
The world’s largest communications company has backed OAN since the network’s launching in 2013, giving a major boost to an outlet that’s widely considered a propaganda tool for the Republican Party, according to a Reuters investigation out Wednesday.
The report shows that 90% of OAN’s revenue comes from a contract with AT&T-owned television platforms, which include satellite company DirecTV — and that AT&T executives came up with the idea of starting the channel.
The investigation was based on a series of court records, including testimony from OAN founder and chief executive Robert Herring Sr. during a 2019 labor lawsuit deposition involving a former network employee, a case unrelated to AT&T. Herring reportedly told the court he was inspired to launch OAN after meeting with a group of AT&T executives.
“They told us they wanted a conservative network,” he testified. “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.”
The court records reviewed by Reuters also cite an alleged promise by OAN to “cast a positive light” on AT&T during news programs at a time when AT&T was seeking federal approval to acquire DirecTV. In exchange, the report suggests, AT&T would agree to carry OAN on DirecTV.
The Federal Communications Commission approved the acquisition in July 2015.
AT&T has denied making such a deal, telling Reuters that “support for the merger was never a condition of or part of any content agreement.”
Jim Greer, a spokesman for the Dallas-based telecom giant, would not comment on Herring’s testimony due to confidentiality agreements.
“DIRECTV offers its customers a wide variety of programming, including many news channels that offer viewpoints across the political spectrum, but does not dictate or control programming on the channels. Any suggestion otherwise is wrong,” he said in an email to the Daily News.
In a lengthier statement Wednesday, AT&T said it never had a financial interest in OAN’s success and does not fund the network. The company “refused” to carry OAN when it acquired DirecTV, which was then sued by the channel, according to the statement.
“Four years ago, DIRECTV reached a commercial carriage agreement with OAN, as it has with hundreds of other channels and as OAN has done with the other TV providers that carry its programming,” AT&T said, noting that DirecTV recently became a separate and independent entity — though AT&T has retained a 70% share in the new company.
AT&T also owns WarnerMedia, an entertainment conglomerate that includes CNN, HBO, TBS and TNT.
Herring’s ultraconservative network, also known as OANN, has seen its audience skyrocket in recent years, largely thanks to former President Donald Trump repeatedly touting the channel on social media. OAN’s friendly coverage of Trump and other right-wing figures has helped draw away viewers from fellow conservative stations Fox News and Newsmax.
OAN was temporarily banned from YouTube last year for spreading misinformation about the coronavirus pandemic and unproven “miraculous” cures.
It is also the target of a billion-dollar lawsuit by Dominion Voting Systems over its coverage of unfounded claims of massive fraud in the 2020 presidential elections. One of the allegations in the suit is that OAN brought on a supposed “expert mathematician” to speak about Dominion’s voting equipment despite him being “a convicted felon with no college degree.”