Reuters reports that AT&T helped create, and then fund, the odious traitor-Trump right-wing propaganda network One American News, which promoted 2020 election fraud lies as well as COVID anti-vax insanity.
DirectTV should drop OANN immediately.
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.”
Since then, AT&T has been a crucial source of funds flowing into OAN, providing tens of millions of dollars in revenue, court records show. Ninety percent of OAN’s revenue came from a contract with AT&T-owned television platforms, including satellite broadcaster DirecTV, according to 2020 sworn testimony by an OAN accountant.
Where are the seven left-wing news channels that AT&T says are broadcasting? This is crazy.
"Without the DirecTV deal, the accountant said under oath, the network’s value “would be zero.”
AT&T must stop funding conspiracy theories and propaganda, "Without the DirecTV deal, the accountant said under oath, the network’s value “would be zero.”
It's no wonder Trump kept promoting OAN leading up to and then after he lost the 2020 election.
On January 6, after Trump supporters broke into the U.S. Capitol, an OAN news director cautioned staff via email, “Please DO NOT say ‘Trump Supporters Storm Capitol …’ Simply call them demonstrators or protestors … DO NOT CALL IT A RIOT!!!”
I watched OAN in real-time as the attack on the US Capitol unfolded and their hosts were already trying to blame ANTIFA infiltrators as the real culprits fueling the insurrection.
In Republican circles, lies pay off.
As we've written many times on C&L, the right-wing pay heavily to promote their views, no matter how detrimental to the country they are.
Read the full Reuters investigation-- it's disturbing, to say the least.
Here are some AT&T contacts.
And here.
