[link removed]

FAIR
View article on FAIR's website ([link removed])
AT&T and OAN: Not-So-Strange Bedfellows Ari Paul ([link removed])


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

Reuters (10/6/21 ([link removed]) ) documented the symbiotic relationship between one of the US's most toxic far-right news outlets and its largest telecom company.

A report linking AT&T, one of the US's most powerful telecommunications corporations, to the far-right One American News Network has been presented as a “bombshell” revelation (Daily Beast, 10/6/21 ([link removed]) ; Poynter, 10/7/21 ([link removed]) ; Guardian, 10/7/21 ([link removed]) ) about the connection between big capital and Trumpian populism. The question is: Should it be so surprising?

The first segment of the investigation by Reuters (10/6/21 ([link removed]) ) found that “AT&T has been a crucial source of funds flowing into OAN, providing tens of millions of dollars in revenue,” and that 90% of “OAN’s revenue came from a contract with AT&T-owned television platforms.” The second segment (10/7/21 ([link removed]) ) focuses on the network’s founder, Robert Herring Sr.

It’s a remarkable piece of investigative business journalism by John Shiffman, scrutinizing documents that might have otherwise stayed in the shadows. According to a 2019 deposition obtained by Reuters, Herring said that the idea for OAN came from AT&T executives in 2013. Herring said “they wanted a conservative network” because "they only had one, which was Fox, and they had seven others on the other side.” (Reuters glosses "other side" as meaning "left-wing," a label that does not credibly apply to any of the networks carried ([link removed]) by AT&T's DirecTV platform.)

AT&T has tried to downplay the story, saying that it does not fund the network or control it, but as Media Matters (10/6/21 ([link removed]) ) noted, that early funding gave the network a head start, and “OAN would not exist were it not for AT&T’s financial support and distribution.” As Reuters quoted an OAN lawyer, if the network were to "not be renewed on DirecTV, the company would go out of business tomorrow."


** Political hyper-extremism
------------------------------------------------------------

OAN, along with Christopher Ruddy's Newsmax, has become synonymous with Donald Trump’s nationalist wing of the Republican Party. It exhibits a political hyper-extremism that has led some of Trump’s more ardent supporters to view Fox News, two decades ago the lone wolf of conservative TV news, as too liberal (CNN, 11/12/20 ([link removed]) ; Washington Post, 12/27/20 ([link removed]) ). This would come as a shock to viewers of Sean Hannity ([link removed]) and Tucker Carlson ([link removed]) , popular Fox hosts who still carry water for the former president and his movement. The surrealism of this shift is palpable: Both networks could easily be mistaken for parodies of a dystopian future, networks that fuse the Orwellian nature of North
Korean broadcasting with American kitsch.
OAN: Reports: Deep State, China Use Covid-19 for Population Control

OAN (5/8/20 ([link removed]) ) makes George Soros the face of a "population control" conspiracy.

OAN has promoted conspiracy theories about the 2020 election, Syria and much else (Daily Beast,12/26/19 ([link removed]) ). It aired a bizarre and not-too-subtly antisemitic “story linking the coronavirus to George Soros and a ‘population control’ plot” (CNN, 5/10/20 ([link removed]) ). FAIR founder Jeff Cohen said of OAN, “I watched this channel every day in December 2020 and January, when audience spiked,” through March 2021, and saw a channel “that makes Fox News sound like Democracy Now!”

Its over-the-topness has boosted the upstart's standing on the right, and gained it a sizable following, thanks in large part to promotion from Trump himself (Guardian, 6/15/19 ([link removed]) ). OAN doesn’t participate in Nielsen ratings, but the network claims it “pulled in its highest ratings ever in 2020,” with viewership growing “by more than 40% in the fourth quarter compared to the third quarter," Reuters (12/29/20 ([link removed]) ) reported. The news service quoted OAN CEO Herring claiming that according to data from “a major pay TV provider in 70 markets...OAN ranked as the No. 4 national news network with those viewers.”

But the Trumpier-than-thou act also lands these networks in trouble: Dominion, which makes voting systems, sued both OAN and Fox for spreading the false accusation that the company fixed the 2020 presidential election for Joe Biden (CNBC, 8/10/21 ([link removed]) ). Newsmax, the other major right-wing TV news network, had been part of the same lawsuit with OAN, but was dropped after it issued an apology to Dominion and admitted it had no evidence for its fraud claims (Forbes, 4/30/21 ([link removed]) ).


** Hardly progressive
------------------------------------------------------------

How could a respectable firm like AT&T—a cornerstone of global commerce—end up in a gang like this? The revelations about AT&T and OAN puncture the myth that Trumpian populism, isolationism and extreme nationalism are isolated to the fringes of Red State America, somehow distinct and divorced from the traditional Republican base of corporate leaders, who are otherwise worldly and enjoy cozy relationships with politicians of both major parties.

AT&T is hardly a progressive company. For example, the Dallas Morning News (3/23/21 ([link removed]) ) reported that AT&T sent “thousands of dollars through its PAC to Republican groups with ties to members of Congress who objected to certifying President Joe Biden’s victory on January 6," even though the company had said “it would no longer contribute to those members in the days after the Capitol riot.” Pro-choice activists blasted the company “for backing Texas lawmakers who sponsored the new state law that effectively outlaws abortion after six weeks” (CNBC, 10/4/21 ([link removed]) ).
Guardian: AT&T said Trump's tax cut would create jobs – now it's laying off thousands of workers

As a corporation, AT&T has a keen interest in tax cuts (Guardian, 3/30/21 ([link removed]) ) and deregulation—priorities that mesh well with the politics pushed by far-right outlets like OAN.

Like most smart capitalist firms, AT&T gives money to both Democrats and Republicans, but has a clear preference: According to Open Secrets ([link removed]) , in the 2020 election cycle, the company's PACs gave $165,000 to Republican Party committees, and only $60,000 to Democratic committees.

The Communications Workers of America has complained that company downsizing resulted in a reduction in wages (Fierce Wireless, 4/26/21 ([link removed]) ). The Guardian (3/30/21 ([link removed]) ) reported that AT&T showed “keen support for a major corporate tax cut under Donald Trump,” arguing that it would spur job growth, but this year "announced permanent closures of hundreds of retail stores around the US and laid off thousands of workers.”

Like most telecom firms, the company is hostile toward regulation, as it “lied about California's net neutrality law…when it claimed the law requires AT&T to stop providing ‘free data’ to mobile customers” (Ars Technica, 3/18/21 ([link removed]) ). The American Civil Liberties Union (7/9/21 ([link removed]) ) added that AT&T’s privileging DirecTV for its cellular customers “is almost a pure textbook example of why net neutrality rules were put into place.”

Not only had the telecom giant been a huge backer of the campaign to end the FCC's net neutrality policy, but New York state investigators found that the company was a part of a coalition that “acted to give” Trump FCC chair Ajit Pai “‘cover’ to repeal the broadband regulations” (New York Times, 5/6/21 ([link removed]) ). AT&T “funded an effort that yielded millions of fake comments supporting” the end of net neutrality, the Times reported, adding that “about 18 million of the 22 million comments sent to the FCC during the debate over the net neutrality rules were fake, the investigation found.”


** Political cynicism
------------------------------------------------------------

Is it so shocking that a communications company with such a track record of political cynicism would grab an opportunity to get a slice of the ascendant far-right media pie? The revelations counter a well-manicured image that Trump-aligned media and his loyalists in Congress are somehow anti-establishment, a voice of the regular American rather than of the commercial elite (FAIR.org, 2/16/21 ([link removed]) ).

This image doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. For example, Christopher Ruddy, the CEO of Newsmax, holds ([link removed]) a graduate degree from the London School of Economics, and has served as a fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution—not exactly the resume of a provincial anti-globalist. His network (8/31/21 ([link removed]) ) has pushed mainstream corporate conservative media lines against labor unions.

The Federalist was founded by Ben Domenech, who despite positioning the outlet as an enemy of the Washington swamp (6/9/21 ([link removed]) ) is married to Meghan McCain, the daughter of Trump-loathing late Sen. John McCain, herself a former host of the popular mainstream show The View (Variety, 9/26/21 ([link removed]) ).

On the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, the parent company of the Daily Mail—a tabloid (10/28/20 ([link removed]) ) that has painted Brexit as a British partner to Trumpism in a popular rebellion against the global establishment—is controlled by Jonathan Harmsworth, aka the 4th Viscount Rothermere, a literal aristocrat (Guardian,12/18/16 ([link removed]) ).

So-called right-wing populism ([link removed]) is often cloaked in the image of anti-corporate rage—take the ongoing campaign of Sen. Josh Hawley (Stanford '02, Yale Law '06) against Silicon Valley, which paints tech giants as unrestrained enforcers of cultural liberalism (Washington Post, 8/29/19 ([link removed]) ). But Trump loyalists in Congress and in the media share a common bond with traditional and mainstream conservatives and the business class. They all want to lower taxes, reduce regulations on business and curtail the power of organized labor.

AT&T saw something worthwhile in OAN, and can certainly tolerate a bit of right-wing quackery if it means having another media avenue to fight a class war against any kind of progressive economic and regulatory agenda.
Read more ([link removed])

Share this post: <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="[link removed]" title="Twitter"><img border="0" height="15" width="15" src="[link removed]" title="Twitter" alt="Twitter" class="mc-share"></a>
<a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="[link removed]" title="Facebook"><img border="0" height="15" width="15" src="[link removed]" title="Facebook" alt="Facebook" class="mc-share"></a>
<a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="[link removed]" title="Pinterest"><img border="0" height="15" width="15" src="[link removed]" title="Pinterest" alt="Pinterest" class="mc-share"></a>
<a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="[link removed]" title="LinkedIn"><img border="0" height="15" width="15" src="[link removed]" title="LinkedIn" alt="LinkedIn" class="mc-share"></a>
<a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="[link removed]" title="Google Plus"><img border="0" height="15" width="15" src="[link removed]" title="Google Plus" alt="Google Plus" class="mc-share"></a>
<a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="[link removed]" title="Instapaper"><img border="0" height="15" width="15" src="[link removed]" title="Instapaper" alt="Instapaper" class="mc-share"></a>
​

© 2021 Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting. All rights reserved.
You are receiving this email because you signed up for email alerts from
Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting

Our mailing address is:
FAIRNESS & ACCURACY IN REPORTING
124 W. 30th Street, Suite 201
New York, NY 10001

FAIR's Website ([link removed])

FAIR counts on your support to do this work — please donate today ([link removed]) .

Follow us on Twitter ([link removed]) | Friend us on Facebook ([link removed])

change your preferences (*%7CUPDATE_PROFILE%7C*)
Email Marketing Powered by Mailchimp
[link removed]
unsubscribe ([link removed]) .