You may have read that it was the One American News Network (OANN or OAN) where Trump came up with the crazy-pants-on-fire claim that the 75 year old protester assaulted by the police in Buffalo was a secret agent provocateur.
This is what The Washington Post said about Trump and OANN:
That was the story (about the Buffalo protestor), until the unfailingly pro-Trump network One America News ran a segment elevating ridiculous accusations about Gugino from a right-wing website called Conservative Treehouse. It’s not the first time that One America News has pushed out obviously nonsensical conspiracy theories. Earlier this year, reporter Chanel Rion* reported that the coronavirus originated in North Carolina — because some random unidentified guy on Twitter said it had. Rion is OAN’s White House reporter, who attends White House press briefings at the invitation of the administration after the White House press corps barred her for violating social distancing efforts.
Trump loves OAN because of its loyalty to his presidency and his politics. He has often used it as a foil to Fox News when he feels that Fox has strayed too far from him, as when it interviews Democratic legislators. It’s not surprising, then, that he saw OAN’s most recent conspiratorial report. It is still somehow surprising, though, that he decided it was worth sharing with the American public.
* HB’s Note: Her previous job was with the Russian state sponsored Sputnik News.
This is from the Mother Jones article: “Meet the Propagandists and Conspiracy Theorists Behind the One America News Network”
Despite its small viewership, Trump has helped OAN gain outsized reach and reputation by endorsing its outrageous reporting and by his multiple assertions that he might prefer the network to Fox News. The channel’s willingness to do stories without a factual basis seems to know no bounds, as long as they make the left look bad and the right, particularly Trumpism, look great. The channel amplifies hoaxes that, before, were usually sitting on the margins of the internet. For example, theories about the global ambitions of liberal megadonor George Soros, Bill Gates, and other wealthy people that the channel has run haven’t appeared anywhere else but on message boards and fringe-right Twitter and Instagram accounts. It’s unclear if the channel has a fact-checking process. If it does, it appears to have no problem citing such sources.
OAN’s willingness to amplify the false and absurd probably comes from its personnel. It’s established a team of on-air personalities who, without the network’s platform, would be hard pressed to do much beyond being tinfoil hat-wearing, internet shit posters. Here’s a look at some of the wildest members of their organization:
This is how Wikipedia describes OANN:
Introduction: One America News Network (OANN), also known as One America News (OAN), is a far-right[1][2][3][4][5] pro-Trump cable channel founded by Robert Herring, Sr., and owned by Herring Networks, Inc., launched on July 4, 2013.[1][6][7][8][9] The network is headquartered in San Diego, California, and operates news bureaus in Washington, D.C. and New York City.
Its prime time political talk shows have a conservative perspective, and the channel regularly features pro-Donald Trump stories.[10][11] The channel described itself as one of the "greatest supporters" of Trump.[12] Trump has repeatedly promoted the network.[3] The channel is prominent for promoting falsehoods and conspiracy theories.[3][13][14] Continued
Here’s what prompted me to write this diary. I read this story in The Washington Post this morning:
Basically the WaPo article described that the poll didn’t deliver the promised Trump result. Reading it I decided to talk a look at the OANN website out of curiosity and here’s what I found: it is crapola, a heaping stinking pile of Trump sycophancy rounded out with articles you can just as easily find on Reuters.com.
With the exception of the longer lead story about Seattle, the stories shown below which are on the top of the page generally run between four to six short paragraphs:
Scrolling down from the stories shown above you might think that this is a real news website what with these sections. You’d be wrong.
These are all article from Reuters.
I have occasionally done the dirty work with Fox News, for example:
Now I did the more dirty work so you don’t have to. Time for a cleansing shower.