OAN

Subject: OAN Mon Apr 06, 2020 7:12 am

John Oliver has done a segment on the new far-right organization One America Network, which popped up in the Trump era because Fox News was reverting to facts too often for the president's taste. He calls on the OAN reporters in White House briefings more often than anyone else, he praises their "coverage" and he retweets their insane conspiracy theories. In a world where information becomes fungible with misinformation, and newsmakers prefer "hunches" and "feelings" over facts it stands to reason that journalististic conventions are out the window.

Take this OAN response to a "news" story:

Quote :: extra salt Retief-CDT • 17 hours ago
Go to Infowars or The Gateway Pundit or Tucker Carlsons show and see how many cures and treatments that have popped up since we were shut down.
Then look at the same places and see articles showing citizen journalists are exposing that the hospitals are mostly ghost towns all over the Western world.
Then look at how much the mortality rate has already dropped, and that was before new cures and treatments were really being brought into widespread use,
And then say "Open for Easter"

How is it that an organization like OAN can even GET White House credentials?

Wikipedia wrote:: In October 2017, the channel claimed without evidence that a "report" had been published which showed "U.K. Crime Rises 13% Annually Amid Spread of Radical Islamic Terror".^[32] President Trump later repeated this falsehood, suggesting that he learned of it from OAN.^[33]^[34]
In June 2017, OAN was granted a permanent seat in the White House's James Brady briefing room.^[35] The network's Chief White House Correspondent, Trey Yingst, was one of the top five most called-upon reporters covering the Trump Administration.^[36] OAN has been repeatedly called on by President Trump during Presidential press conferences, including in February 2017 when Yingst asked the President about his campaign's contacts with the Russian government.^[37] Also in February 2017, OAN was invited to a network lunch with President Trump.^[38] In August 2017, President Trump praised OAN, saying "It's a great network." In response, OAN CEO Robert Herring said that OAN considers itself a tough but fair presence in the White House press corps.^[39]
OAN supported the Trump administration's revoking of CNN reporter Jim Acosta's press credentials; most major media outlets, including the conservative Fox News, opposed this decision. In a statement, Robert Herring attacked Fox News, saying he "can't believe Fox is on the other side."^[40]^[41]^[42]

OAN broadcasts every Trump speech uninterrupted.

And what are the chances that it's actually a Russian counter-information front?

Wikipedia wrote:: Robert Herring, Sr., founder and CEO of the network, has ordered producers to promote pro-Trump stories, anti-Clinton stories, and anti-abortion stories, and to minimize stories about Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

Business Insider wrote:: During a report in a September episode of "The Rachel Maddow Show," Maddow referenced a Daily Beast report that an OAN employee worked for Sputnik News, she called the network "the most obsequiously pro-Trump right-wing news outlet in America really literally is paid Russian propaganda."

"Their on-air US politics reporter is paid by the Russian government to produce propaganda for that government," Maddow said.

Maddow's comments prompted the network to file a federal defamation suit that named Maddow, Comcast, MSNBC and NBCUniversal Media and was seeking more than $10 million.