One America News Network (OANN), the premier cable news outlet for people who think Fox News is a deep state operation, spent years largely toiling in obscurity and engaging in conspiracy theories until it finally caught on during the Donald Trump era, because of course. But how exactly did a news network that no one was watching survive long enough to propel itself to relevancy and become the go-to source for anti-vaccine nonsense and election fraud conspiracies pushed by a pillow salesman? Why, with a little help from America’s largest communications company, of course!
According to a new report from Reuters, telecom giant AT&T has served as both the inspiration for OANN’s beginnings and its primary financial life raft. In a deposition obtained by Reuters, the far-right news network’s founder and chief executive Robert Herring Sr. said that OANN came to be because executives at AT&T told him “they wanted a conservative network,” because they only had Fox News filling that niche. “When they said that, I jumped to it and built one,” Herring said. An accountant for Herring also claimed under oath that without a deal to be on AT&T’s TV offerings, OANN’s value “would be zero.”
