Meet the Propagandists and Conspiracy Theorists Behind the One America News Network

[TomCADem]

I guess there is a race to try to out-crazy Fox News...

Link to tweet

?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1240682552186322945&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.businessinsider.com%2Fcoronavirus-trump-oann-banned-violated-social-distancing-restrictions-2020-4

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/06/one-america-news-network-staff/

Over the last several weeks, President Trump has repeatedly promoted the conspiracy-mongering One American News Network on his Twitter feed and by regularly calling on its correspondent at White House news events. On Tuesday morning, he did so again by tweeting an unsubstantiated conspiracy that has been pushed by the network, citing its reporting to claim that a 75-year-old man who was knocked over and bloodied by Buffalo police while taking part in a protest after the death of George Floyd may have been “an ANTIFA provocateur” working to disrupt police communications.

Based on what little data is available, the channel could use all the White House support it can get. According to CNN, OAN doesn’t subscribe to industry-standard Nielsen Media Research, but last spring, it went ahead and measured the channel anyway in the country’s largest metropolitan areas. It averaged just 14,000 viewers from April 1, 2019, to June 11, 2019. In that time, Fox News averaged 631,000 viewers; CNN and MSNBC also had averages in the hundreds of thousands. While the network’s owner has said it is available in 35 million American homes, that number represents less than a third of households with television.

Despite its small viewership, Trump has helped OAN gain outsize reach and reputation by endorsing its outrageous reporting and by his multiple assertions that he might prefer the network to Fox News. The channel’s willingness to do stories without a factual basis seems to know no bounds, as long as they make the left look bad and the right, particularly Trumpism, look great. The channel amplifies hoaxes that, before, were usually sitting on the margins of the internet. For example, theories about the global ambitions of liberal megadonor George Soros, Bill Gates, and other wealthy people that the channel has run haven’t appeared anywhere else but on message boards and fringe-right Twitter and Instagram accounts. It’s unclear if the channel has a fact-checking process. If it does, it appears to have no problem citing such sources.

OAN’s willingness to amplify the false and absurd probably comes from its personnel. It’s established a team of on-air personalities who, without the network’s platform, would be hard pressed to do much beyond being tinfoil hat-wearing, internet shit posters. Here’s a look at some of the wildest members of their organization:

[cayugafalls]

1. Nothing but disgust for that woman.

Disgusting abuse of free press.

[TomCADem]

2. White House backs far-right reporter in social-distancing skirmish

It is pretty blatant how the White House gives OAN special access and an exemption from social distancing requirements.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/05/08/white-house-backs-far-right-reporter-in-social-distancing-skirmish/

(CNN) — A correspondent for the far-right One America News network, expelled from the White House press room for flagrantly violating social-distancing rules, has continued to show up for briefings with the support of the president’s staff.

The White House Correspondents Association took the unusual step on April 1 of ousting OAN after its correspondent Chanel Rion insisted on entering the briefing on days when she did not have an assigned seat.

The association, which is responsible for assigning seats in the White House’s press briefing room, had restricted the number of journalists in the room so that distance could be maintained and had asked that each member of the press pool attend only every other day.

Since then, the White House has not only allowed Rion to break the WHCA guidelines but it appears to actually be assisting her in doing so. Rion has boasted she was attending the briefings at the personal invitation of the press secretary.

[cayugafalls]

3. OAN and their obvious ties to Russian state propaganda outlet Sputnik

should be enough to limit or exclude their access to the meetings.

Unfortunately, Trump is compromised and this administration has allowed Russia to get away with everything. There is no rule of law anymore, unless that law is used to protect heir fuhrer.

They are using their access to further discredit the real news media and propagate false narratives.

[TomCADem]

4. I Guess Giving Russia Today (RT) a Permanent Seat...

...in the White House briefings would have been a tad obvious.

[Frasier Balzov]

5. Herring and his stable of lemmings.

All headed for the cliff.