Commissar SFLUFAN Posted October 6, 2021 Share Posted October 6, 2021 Special Report: How AT&T helped build far-right One America News WWW.REUTERS.COM America’s top telecom giant nurtured OAN, the pro-Trump news channel now at the center of a bitter national divide over politics and truth. Quote One America News, the far-right network whose fortunes and viewership rose amid the triumph and tumult of the Trump administration, has flourished with support from a surprising source: AT&T Inc, the world's largest communications company. 'A Reuters review of court records shows the role AT&T played in creating and funding OAN, a network that continues to spread conspiracy theories about the 2020 election and the COVID-19 pandemic. 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.” 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
b_m_b_m_b_m Posted October 6, 2021 Share Posted October 6, 2021 Capital just can't help but prop up reactionaries Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SuperSpreader Posted October 6, 2021 Share Posted October 6, 2021 I have like 5 AT&T accounts Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Commissar SFLUFAN Posted October 6, 2021 Author Share Posted October 6, 2021 1 minute ago, SuperSpreader said: I have like 5 AT&T accounts Fascist. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
b_m_b_m_b_m Posted October 6, 2021 Share Posted October 6, 2021 4 minutes ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said: Fascist. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason Posted October 6, 2021 Share Posted October 6, 2021 17 minutes ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said: Fascist. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marioandsonic Posted October 6, 2021 Share Posted October 6, 2021 My family uses AT&T, and I never liked it. I switched to Verizon a couple years ago, but I feel their coverage area is godawful. Maybe I should give T mobile a try... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ricofoley Posted October 7, 2021 Share Posted October 7, 2021 We know for a fact that Trump started watching OANN and Newsmax instead of Fox at the end of his presidency because they were telling him what he wanted to hear. It's undoubtedly true that the feedback loop Trump got from watching that stuff contributed to how much he dug in on refusing to concede after the election. It's probably fair say that AT&T is directly responsible for permanently damaging American democracy by creating this network. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Signifyin(g)Monkey Posted October 7, 2021 Share Posted October 7, 2021 11 hours ago, Ricofoley said: We know for a fact that Trump started watching OANN and Newsmax instead of Fox at the end of his presidency because they were telling him what he wanted to hear. It's undoubtedly true that the feedback loop Trump got from watching that stuff contributed to how much he dug in on refusing to concede after the election. It's probably fair say that AT&T is directly responsible for permanently damaging American democracy by creating this network. You could argue it’s more perverse than that. One might say that a vast swathe of voters were so in thrall to Trump that they would literally support the creation of an entire news network in a hermetically sealed mediasphere to construct the reality he claimed to be true , rather than reckon with the one they actually live in. Trump was just reacting the way any run-of-the-mill megalomaniac would when “If I say it, it becomes true” becomes a feature of the world his base lives in. If it hadn’t been AT&T, it would have been someone else. It’s awful hard to keep supply away from demand. It was the Trumpists’ job to demand the norms of liberal democracy were more important than their idol, and…they failed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brucoe Posted October 7, 2021 Share Posted October 7, 2021 When I read the original story on this a few days ago, I started thinking I'd dump my AT&T account with my cell phone, and then little by little I started to realize how many things that were owned by AT&T were basically a part of my life. I have two cell phone accounts, I subscribe to HBO, I watch shows on Warner/HBO all the time, I watch CNN and who knows what else. Basically, boycotting AT&T doesn't make a difference because all along I've been funding AT&T, which basically means I was funding OAN but wanting to blame someone else cause they pulled the trigger. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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