SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
Kimberly Guilfoyle speaks during an interview with One America News Network during the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando on February 26, 2021. (Photo: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
DirecTV to Drop Rabidly Pro-Trump One America News
"Millions of viewers will no longer be subsidizing this hateful content with their monthly pay-TV bills," said one campaigner.
Jan 15, 2022
Facing a wave of grassroots pressure, one of the largest television providers in the U.S. reportedly plans to drop the far-right, rabidly pro-Trump One America News Network, an outlet that has come under fire for disseminating falsehoods about the 2020 election results, the coronavirus pandemic, and other major issues.
Bloomberg reported late Friday that DirecTV has informed OANN's owner, Herring Networks Inc., that it intends to "stop carrying the company's two channels when their contract expires" in early April.
The move comes after civil rights organizations and other advocacy groups called on DirecTV and AT&T--which owns a 70% stake in the satellite-TV provider--to sever ties with OANN for "spreading anti-democratic disinformation, promoting Covid-19 conspiracy theories, and fueling racism."
According to a recent Reuters investigation, AT&T--the world's largest telecom company--"has been a crucial source of funds flowing into OAN, providing tens of millions of dollars in revenue."
"The dangerous conspiracies and lies regularly aired on OANN have worsened a public-health crisis and given oxygen to baseless claims about the irrefutable outcome of our last presidential election," Nora Benavidez, senior counsel and director of digital justice and civil rights at Free Press, said in a statement Friday.
"OANN can say whatever it wants on its own soapbox, but it does not have an automatic right to a national audience through DirecTV," Benavidez added. "We welcome the news that DirecTV has made the decision to stop carrying OANN, especially knowing millions of viewers will no longer be subsidizing this hateful content with their monthly pay-TV bills."
Angelo Carusone, president of Media Matters, also applauded DirecTV's move, calling OANN "a cauldron of misinformation and extremism."
"Without DirecTV, OAN would certainly not exist in its current form and possibly not at all," said Carusone. "Now that OAN's anchor distributor has dropped them, Verizon FiOS (OAN's second major distributor) should follow suit. And certainly no other cable provider should pick them up."
An Urgent Message From Our Co-Founder
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It's never been this bad out there. And it's never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed, the threats we face are intensifying. We need your support now more than ever. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Will you donate now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
Facing a wave of grassroots pressure, one of the largest television providers in the U.S. reportedly plans to drop the far-right, rabidly pro-Trump One America News Network, an outlet that has come under fire for disseminating falsehoods about the 2020 election results, the coronavirus pandemic, and other major issues.
Bloomberg reported late Friday that DirecTV has informed OANN's owner, Herring Networks Inc., that it intends to "stop carrying the company's two channels when their contract expires" in early April.
The move comes after civil rights organizations and other advocacy groups called on DirecTV and AT&T--which owns a 70% stake in the satellite-TV provider--to sever ties with OANN for "spreading anti-democratic disinformation, promoting Covid-19 conspiracy theories, and fueling racism."
According to a recent Reuters investigation, AT&T--the world's largest telecom company--"has been a crucial source of funds flowing into OAN, providing tens of millions of dollars in revenue."
"The dangerous conspiracies and lies regularly aired on OANN have worsened a public-health crisis and given oxygen to baseless claims about the irrefutable outcome of our last presidential election," Nora Benavidez, senior counsel and director of digital justice and civil rights at Free Press, said in a statement Friday.
"OANN can say whatever it wants on its own soapbox, but it does not have an automatic right to a national audience through DirecTV," Benavidez added. "We welcome the news that DirecTV has made the decision to stop carrying OANN, especially knowing millions of viewers will no longer be subsidizing this hateful content with their monthly pay-TV bills."
Angelo Carusone, president of Media Matters, also applauded DirecTV's move, calling OANN "a cauldron of misinformation and extremism."
"Without DirecTV, OAN would certainly not exist in its current form and possibly not at all," said Carusone. "Now that OAN's anchor distributor has dropped them, Verizon FiOS (OAN's second major distributor) should follow suit. And certainly no other cable provider should pick them up."
Facing a wave of grassroots pressure, one of the largest television providers in the U.S. reportedly plans to drop the far-right, rabidly pro-Trump One America News Network, an outlet that has come under fire for disseminating falsehoods about the 2020 election results, the coronavirus pandemic, and other major issues.
Bloomberg reported late Friday that DirecTV has informed OANN's owner, Herring Networks Inc., that it intends to "stop carrying the company's two channels when their contract expires" in early April.
The move comes after civil rights organizations and other advocacy groups called on DirecTV and AT&T--which owns a 70% stake in the satellite-TV provider--to sever ties with OANN for "spreading anti-democratic disinformation, promoting Covid-19 conspiracy theories, and fueling racism."
According to a recent Reuters investigation, AT&T--the world's largest telecom company--"has been a crucial source of funds flowing into OAN, providing tens of millions of dollars in revenue."
"The dangerous conspiracies and lies regularly aired on OANN have worsened a public-health crisis and given oxygen to baseless claims about the irrefutable outcome of our last presidential election," Nora Benavidez, senior counsel and director of digital justice and civil rights at Free Press, said in a statement Friday.
"OANN can say whatever it wants on its own soapbox, but it does not have an automatic right to a national audience through DirecTV," Benavidez added. "We welcome the news that DirecTV has made the decision to stop carrying OANN, especially knowing millions of viewers will no longer be subsidizing this hateful content with their monthly pay-TV bills."
Angelo Carusone, president of Media Matters, also applauded DirecTV's move, calling OANN "a cauldron of misinformation and extremism."
"Without DirecTV, OAN would certainly not exist in its current form and possibly not at all," said Carusone. "Now that OAN's anchor distributor has dropped them, Verizon FiOS (OAN's second major distributor) should follow suit. And certainly no other cable provider should pick them up."
We've had enough. The 1% own and operate the corporate media. They are doing everything they can to defend the status quo, squash dissent and protect the wealthy and the powerful. The Common Dreams media model is different. We cover the news that matters to the 99%. Our mission? To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. How? Nonprofit. Independent. Reader-supported. Free to read. Free to republish. Free to share. With no advertising. No paywalls. No selling of your data. Thousands of small donations fund our newsroom and allow us to continue publishing. Can you chip in? We can't do it without you. Thank you.