direcTV
<div><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>owned by AT &T,</b> dumped OANN, then newsmax? 1 23</font></span></div><div><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 17px; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">an 3 23</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;">In late January, DirecTV <a href="https://www.fiercevideo.com/video/directv-drops-newsmax-carriage-dispute" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(11, 13, 101); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">dropped far-right Fox News competitor Newsmax</a> from its satellite lineup when the two were unable to reach an agreement on license fees. MAGA Republicans were bitterly disappointed, as Newsmax prides itself on being more right-wing and more pro-Donald Trump than Fox News and Fox Business. However, DirecTV hasn't ruled out the possibility of bringing Newsmax back if they can come to an agreement on license fees.</p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;">Some of the MAGA Republicans who hated to see Newsmax removed from the DirecTV lineup are angrily accusing DirecTV of discriminating against the right. And one of them is Rep. James Comer (R-Kentucky), who now chairs the House Oversight Committee.</p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">During <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/house-oversight-chair-james-comer-threatens-directv-bring-back-newsmax-or-else" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(11, 13, 101); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">a Friday, February 24 appearance on Newsmax</a>, Comer threatened to use House Oversight against DirecTV if it doesn't restore Newsmax to its lineup.</span></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;"><strong>READ MORE: </strong><a href="https://www.alternet.org/newsmax-host-exclusively-white-americans/" target="self" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(11, 13, 101); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Watch: Newsmax host falsely declares that 'exclusively white Americans' fought to end slavery</a></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Comer told Newsmax host John Bachman, "I'm very concerned. I'm very upset that DirecTV does not have Newsmax on there. I've been in constant communication with the leadership at AT&T and DirecTV. </span><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">I have strongly encouraged them to meet with your CEO, Mr. (Chris) Ruddy, to get this worked out — or else! If anyone has ever watched the House Oversight Committee — any of our first three hearings — they have to ask themselves:</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"> Do they really want to go in front of the House Oversight Committee?"</span></b></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Fox News continues to have the highest ratings on right-wing cable TV. But in MAGA World, Newsmax appeals largely to people who believe that Fox News and Fox Business aren't far enough to the right.</span></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">On Bachman's show, Comer told the host, "We're all huge fans of Newsmax. We don't like to see Newsmax not being offered on DirecTV, especially considering Newsmax is the, I think, the fourth highest-rated news show on TV now."</span></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;">Comer also said, "And they have dozens of other news shows that have much lower ratings than Newsmax. So, I'm doing everything in my ability to see that this gets worked out. If it doesn't, then I would expect the Republican majority to begin to take steps to take action in this."</p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;"><strong>READ MORE: </strong><a href="https://www.alternet.org/gop-newsmax/" target="self" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(11, 13, 101); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Republicans claiming 'censorship' threaten to haul AT&T, DirecTV into Congress for dropping far-right Newsmax</a></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;">DirecTV, however, has maintained that its decision to drop Newsmax was merely a business/budgetary matter — not an effort to silence Republicans.</p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In late January, a <a href="https://www.fiercevideo.com/video/directv-drops-newsmax-carriage-dispute" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(11, 13, 101); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">DirecTV spokesperson told Fierce Video</a>, "On multiple occasions, we made it clear to Newsmax that we wanted to continue to offer the network, but ultimately, Newsmax's demands for rate increases would have led to significantly higher costs that we would have to pass on to our broad customer base. Anyone, including our customers, can watch the network for free via NewsmaxTV.com, YouTube.com and on multiple streaming platforms like Amazon Fire TV, Roku, and Google Play. We continually evaluate the most relevant programming to provide our customers and expect to fill this available channel with new content."</span></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;">READ MORE: <a href="https://www.alternet.org/newsmax-host-drag-queens-rights/" target="self" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(11, 13, 101); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">'Violation of my constitutional rights': Newsmax host attacks drag queens while defending Donald Trump</a></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;">Watch The Daily Beast's video <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/house-oversight-chair-james-comer-threatens-directv-bring-back-newsmax-or-else" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(11, 13, 101); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">here</a> (subscription required).</p><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">----</div></div></div><div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">mma 2 23 <b>even wsj...</b></font></p><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--stories-text paragraph--view-mode--editorial" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="fancy-elems-wrapper field field--name-field-stories-text-formatted field--type-text-long field--label-hidden fielditem" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">If you’ve been paying attention to this <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/newsmax/timeline-gop-threatens-directv-defense-newsmax" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">asinine saga</a> at all – and let’s hope for your sanity that’s not the case – you know that Newsmax, with its prior contract with DirecTV having run out, is suddenly demanding a massive pay-out from DirecTV. Newsmax is still providing the channel for free to the likes of YouTube, Roku, and more. Given that the contract had expired and a new agreement could not be reached, DirecTV pulled Newsmax from the air. It began airing The First, another right-wing cable network.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Despite all the indications that the end of the contract was a content-neutral decision by a company under siege from rising <a href="https://deadline.com/2023/01/newsmax-directv-the-first-1235241951/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">cord cutting</a> among its customer base (not to mention having <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/22/media/youtube-nfl-sunday-ticket/index.html#::text=The%20popular%20NFL%20Sunday%20Ticket,owned%20by%20Google%2C%20on%20Thursday." style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">lost the NFL Sunday Ticket)</a>, Republican politicians have <a href="https://www.newsmax.com/denniskneale/newsmax-direct-tv-att/2023/02/15/id/1108834/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">joined in</a> with right-wing pundits to call this censorship. There have been talks of congressional hearings. Presidential candidates have weighed in. </span>I<b>t’s one of the silliest big right-wing media stories since Breitbart broke the news of Obama <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/breitbart-news/its-always-conspiracy-derrick-bell-edition" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">giving a hug</a> to one of his law school professors.</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Newsmax CEO Chris Ruddy played the hits in an interview with Mike Huckabee</b>. If you don’t want to watch – and again, I do not recommend it – it starts with <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Huckabee endorsing a congressional investigation into DirecTV</span> and Ruddy in turn saying that Mike Huckabee’s daughter – current Arkansas governor and former Trump White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders – will be president in the future [vid]</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">the interview carries on with Ruddy saying that he was just asking for $1 per subscriber per year. That would be on the <a href="https://variety.com/vip/pay-tv-true-cost-free-1234810682/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">upper range of subscriber fees</a> overall (above the likes of CNBC, FX, and Nickelodeon according to 2020 data) and <b>would result in a higher bill for consumers, all of whom could right now access Newsmax content at no cost elsewhere.</b></font></p></div></div><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--stories-text paragraph--view-mode--editorial" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="fancy-elems-wrapper field field--name-field-stories-text-formatted field--type-text-long field--label-hidden fielditem" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Notably, DirecTV is not standing idly by. The company pushed back in <a href="https://cloudfront.mediamatters.org/static/D8File/2023/02/16/directv-response-to-senate-letter-of-feb-1-2023.pdf?VersionId=iYhzZNm.Xgg_2uLg4FizlNQ4eXRmECEu" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">a letter to Republican senators</a> who have echoed Newsmax’s disingenuous “censorship” angle. The letter reads in part:</font></p></div></div><blockquote class="block-quote block-quote--collapsable" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="block-quotequote" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 1.5rem;"><p style="background-color: rgb(239, 243, 247); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">• When DIRECTV’s prior agreement with Newsmax was set to expire, Newsmax advised us that it would extend our right to distribute the channel only if we agreed to pay tens of millions of dollars in new licensing fees – a cost we would have to pass along to all of our customers. We did not agree. No other major pay TV operator in the market currently pays per subscriber fees to carry the channel.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(239, 243, 247); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">• Newsmax seeks to change the model by which it commercializes its channel. To date, Newsmax has been an advertising-supported channel. To maximize ad sales it distributes the channel free of charge to the approximately 75 million US households that have a pay TV service as well as to the approximately 55 million US households that don’t and instead view the channel on Newsmax’s website or through services like Roku and Amazon Fire. Under its proposed new model, Newsmax plans to make its channel available exclusively in pay TV, to the detriment of the 55 million households that don’t have a pay TV service, and to start charging pay TV operators a per subscriber fee to distribute the channel.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(239, 243, 247); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">• Newsmax insisted on its terms – as is its right to do – and we insisted on ours. Lacking continued authorization to distribute Newsmax, DIRECTV was forced to remove the channel from our lineup.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(239, 243, 247);">• A</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">lthough not currently available on DIRECTV, Newsmax continues to be available on most other major pay TV operators and is also available free of charge (including to DIRECTV’s customers) on Newsmax’s website and on platforms like Roku and Amazon Fire</span><span style="background-color: rgb(239, 243, 247);">.</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(239, 243, 247); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">• Newsmax’s claims that DIRECTV is biased against conservative voices is untrue<b>. Importantly, DIRECTV recently launched The First, a conservative news and commentary channel featuring Bill O’Reilly, Jesse Kelly, Liz Wheeler, and Dana Loesch, among others.</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(239, 243, 247); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">• DIRECTV carries five channels that most people would consider to be predominately news: Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, The First and NewsNation. By most people’s measure, two lean conservative (Fox News and The First), two lean liberal (CNN and MSNBC) and one is a new channel that is advertising that it is news focused and in the center (NewsNation). Fox News is by far the leader in terms of audience and household penetration. Newsmax, when we distributed it, was a distant fourth among news channels to Fox, MSNBC and CNN.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(239, 243, 247); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">• The amounts DIRECTV pays for conservative channels, in the aggregate, is roughly similar to what we pay for liberal channels, in the aggregate.</font></p></div></blockquote><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--stories-text paragraph--view-mode--editorial" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="fancy-elems-wrapper field field--name-field-stories-text-formatted field--type-text-long field--label-hidden fielditem" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The company makes clear that its decision was made from a content-neutral perspective. (It is darkly hilarious that the only structural discrimination that right-wing figures can see is a far-right <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/newsmax/newsmax-airs-mike-lindells-cyber-symposium-ad-over-170-times-single-week" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">election-denying</a> media company run by a friend of Donald Trump not getting a massive handout from another private company, but that’s a story for another time.)</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Newsmax has <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/eric-bolling/after-directv-removes-newsmax-newsmax-host-eric-bolling-lashes-out-fox-where-are-you" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">repeatedly</a> <a href="https://www.newsmax.com/bernardkerik/cnn-laptop-oan/2023/02/14/id/1108585/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">whined</a> that Fox News was being silent about the matter.<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"> Now, even the opinion page of the Murdoch-owned WSJ is <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/newsmax-directv-conservatives-censorship-chris-ruddy-congress-democrats-republicans-ab7480e9" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">taking pot shots</a> at Republican politicians falling for the charade:</span></b></font></p></div></div><blockquote class="block-quote block-quote--collapsable" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="block-quotequote" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 1.5rem;"><p style="background-color: rgb(239, 243, 247); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">We take no side in this business dispute, and it’s bewildering why many Republicans are getting involved. Forty-two House Republicans last month wrote a letter to DirecTV executives and its joint owners, AT&T and TPG, threatening to investigate the TV provider for colluding with the government to suppress conservative voices.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(239, 243, 247); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Sens. Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham, Mike Lee and Tom Cotton piled on this month</b> with a letter suggesting DirecTV may have dropped Newsmax because of “pressure from administration officials or Democrats in Congress” and “may be the latest example of big business suppressing politically disfavored speech at the behest of liberal Democrats.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Their evidence? A letter from Democratic Reps. Anna Eshoo and Jerry McNerney to AT&T CEO John Stankey last February calling for the company to combat misinformation spread by conservative news networks.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(239, 243, 247);"> <b>A letter from two Democratic Congress Members, which was also sent to other TV providers, doesn’t add up to a vast leftwing conspiracy. T</b>he Fox News channel, where these pages have a news program, is also a Democratic target.</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(239, 243, 247); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>DirecTV notes that it helped launch Newsmax in 2014 a</b>nd recently launched the new conservative channel called “The First,” which will increase diversity and competition among conservative voices. Newsmax CEO Chris Ruddy doesn’t want that. Instead, he is trying to bring political and government pressure to bear on DirecTV to force the satellite operator to carry the channel on Newsmax’s terms.</font></p></div></blockquote><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--stories-text paragraph--view-mode--editorial" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="fancy-elems-wrapper field field--name-field-stories-text-formatted field--type-text-long field--label-hidden fielditem" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">(First, a footnote about cable providers and Fox News: Fox News Channel <a href="https://unfoxmycablebox.com/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">has</a> <a href="https://www.nofoxfee.com/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">one</a> of the highest carriage fees in the business, way out of line for what cable providers pay other networks. It’s so high that<b> Fox News would remain profitable even with no advertising</b>.)</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It’s unclear where this story will go from here<b>. There’s nothing that goes viral on the right like victimhood</b>, and they simply cannot start examining those claims too closely given how many of them are snake oil. In the meantime, there’s no evidence that either consumers or DirecTV itself are the least bit intimidated by any of this. <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">After all, it’s just <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/newsmax/newsmaxs-sordid-history-scams-grifts-and-cons" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">another grift</a></span>.</font></p></div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">mma 2 23</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/newsmax/timeline-gop-threatens-directv-defense-newsmax">https://www.mediamatters.org/newsmax/timeline-gop-threatens-directv-defense-newsmax</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Timeline: GOP threatens DirecTV in defense of Newsmax</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">WRITTEN BY MATT GERTZ</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">PUBLISHED 02/02/23</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Republicans are accelerating their campaign to force private cable news carriers to not only carry right-wing propaganda networks but pay them for the privilege. The effort demonstrates how the party has institutionalized former President Donald Trump’s corrupt and authoritarian practice of retaliating against companies that refuse to prioritize the GOP’s partisan interests.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">NewsmaxTV is a right-wing cable news channel founded by Christopher Ruddy, a conservative media veteran<b>. Its stars include former Trump White House press secretary Sean Spicer and former Fox News host Eric Bolling, and it drew notoriety for its relentless lies about fraud in the 2020 presidential election. </b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>NewsmaxTV is available for free on Newsmax’s website and through venues like YouTube and Roku,</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> and it has at times paid cable providers to carry it. </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">The channel loses money but helps burnish the company’s brand and drives new subscribers to the company’s various email lists. Those lists are the company’s profit center: Newsmax uses them to scare credulous seniors into buying scammy financial and health products.</span></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>DirecTV dropped NewsmaxTV last Tuesday after their carriage deal collapsed. According to DirecTV, the company had previously provided NewsmaxTV “at no cost to the programmer” but that Newsmax was “seeking significant fees” in a new deal</b>, <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">and it subsequently replaced it with another right-wing channel in a deal that did not include “extra fees.” But Ruddy declared Newsmax the victim of “political discrimination and censorship.” </span></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"><b>Republican officials have rallied to Newsmax’s defense – often securing network airtime to do so</b>. They are threatening federal retribution against DirecTV and its parent, AT&T, in apparent hopes of forcing the companies to accept particular customers at their preferred price. Party chair Ronna McDaniel, presidential frontrunners Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and dozens of House Republicans, and several of their Senate colleagues have gotten involved in the private business matter.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The GOP’s Newsmax campaign is the latest in a series of Republican efforts to use the power of the state to target corporations for failing to support its partisan interests.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Key Events</b></font></div><div>
</div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">January 20</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Amid carriage negotiation, House Republicans lean on DirecTV and its owners. Forty-two House Republicans, including third-ranking member Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) and Oversight Committee chair Rep. James Comer (R-KY), signed a letter from Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-TX) to the CEOs of DirecTV, majority owner AT&T, and minority owner<b> TPG Capital </b></span>stating that DirecTV was “moving to de-platform NEWSMAX by denying it cable fees on a fair and equitable basis.” The signatories claimed that this would mean that DirecTV “is actively working to limit conservative viewpoints on its system” and suggested that they might respond with congressional “oversight.” </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">January 23</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">DirecTV says sticking point in negotiations is that Newsmax is “now seeking significant fees.” In a statement to the Washington Examiner for an article about the House GOP’s letter, a DirecTV spokesperson said: “We deliver Newsmax to our national base of satellite and IPTV customers today at no cost to the programmer or our customers, ultimately offering Newsmax the ability to generate considerable advertising revenue at no cost. … We’ve discussed with Newsmax on several occasions that we’d like to offer their programming, however, the network is now seeking significant fees that we cannot pass on to our broad customer base.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">January 24</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">DirecTV drops NewsmaxTV. At 11:59 p.m., DirecTV’s deal with NewsmaxTV expired and it stopped broadcasting the channel. In a statement, a spokesperson said, “On multiple occasions, we made it clear to Newsmax that we wanted to continue to offer the network, but ultimately Newsmax’s demands for rate increases would have led to significantly higher costs that we would have to pass on to our broad customer base.” <b>Ruddy responded by calling the move “a blatant act of political discrimination and censorship against Newsmax," adding, “The most extreme liberal channels, even with tiny ratings, get fees from AT&T's DirecTV, but Newsmax and OAN need to be deplatformed</b>.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">January 25</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Newsmax tells viewers to demand congressional action. Using identical language, several Newsmax hosts implored their viewers to contact members of Congress and tell them to take action in response to DirecTV dropping Newsmax. “We are urging you to call your congressman and senator today and demand they investigate AT&T and DirecTV for their discrimination against conservative media,” host Rob Finnerty said after accusing the companies of “blatant political discrimination.” The Daily Beast’s Justin Baragona reported that by the afternoon, “Newsmax anchors John Bachman, Bianca de la Garza, Shaun Kraisman, and Bob Sellers had also read the prepared monologue on air.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Trump threatens AT&T and DirecTV over dropping Newsmax. On his Truth Social platform</b>, former President Donald Trump commented: “The Radical Left seems to have taken over the mind and soul of AT&T. This is a big blow to the Republican Party, and to America itself. For DIRECTV to drop very popular NEWSMAX, without explanation, will not be accepted. I, for one, will be dropping all association with AT&T and DIRECTV, and I have plenty.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Donald Trump, Jr. calls for a right-wing boycott of AT&T. </b>Trump Jr. tweeted, “OUTRAGEOUS: ATT just dropped Newsmax! It’s time for Americans to return the favor and drop ATT. @PatriotMobile is the ONLY conservative mobile provider — use code “DONJR” for FREE activation!” According to its website, Patriot Mobile is “America’s ONLY Christian conservative wireless provider” and the company “is proud to partner with Donald Trump, Jr. in the fight to defend our freedom of speech.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">January 26</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>DirecTV announces it is replacing Newsmax with another right-wing network.</b> <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">DirecTV said that it would replace Newsmax with The First,</span> a<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">nother right-wing channel that features Fox and OAN <b>castoffs Bill O’Reilly, Dana Loesch, and Liz Wheeler. </b></span>A DirecTV spokesperson told the Daily Beast that the deal did not include any “extra fees” for The First, which like Newsmax is also available for free online.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>On Newsmax, Reps. Waltz, Van Drew call for hearings into DirecTV. On Newsmax’s Wake Up America, Rep. Michael Waltz (R-FL) said that House Republicans could convene “public hearings” in which executives from DirecTV and AT&T “come to talk to us </b>and explain this to us” about dropping the channel. Later that day, Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-NJ) told the network that DirecTV dropping Newsmax “is what happens in authoritarian regimes” and said he is “going to push for hearings” in order to preserve “the future of our nation.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Sen. Paul calls for boycott of DirecTV </b>over dropping Newsmax. Sen Rand Paul (R-KY) tweeted, “I would cancel @DIRECTV for censoring @NEWSMAX but I already cancelled them for cancelling @OANN. I guess @DIRECTV doesn’t want conservative viewers so maybe we should all just quit their services and go elsewhere.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">January 27</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>House oversight chair promises DirecTV-Newsmax probe. </b>Asked by Finnerty whether he would hold hearings, <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Comer </span>replied, “Yes. There's gonna be a committee that's gonna hold hearings. We're sitting, we're gonna meet later today and try to discuss which committee's gonna do what. That's certainly on the agenda. I'm very concerned by this.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Sen. Cruz on DirecTV dropping NewsmaxTV: “Conservative voices must not be silenced!”</b> On Twitter, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) shared a Washington Times editorial that described the Newsmax drop as the “censorship of conservative media.” He commented, “Conservative voices must not be silenced!” and included the handles of Newsmax, AT&T, DirecTV, and TPG. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey sends letter of concern to DirecTV. Morrisey, a Republican who is considering a race for governor or U.S. Senate, s</span>ent a letter to the CEO of DirecTV stating, “Neither DirecTV nor the channels it carries should face an ongoing concern over whether programming is acceptable to powerful political elites.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Newsmax’s Bolling condemns Fox for not covering the story</b>. Bolling lashed out at his former employer for not covering DirecTV dropping Newsmax, saying, “By the way. Where are you, Fox? How about you, Fox? I mean, you stand up for us.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">January 30</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Speaker McCarthy promises congressional “action,” s</b>ays he spoke to AT&T directly. In a Newsmax appearance, McCarthy said he found DirecTV dropping the channel “very concerning” and told the hosts, “You're going to see action taken, because we believe it's responsible to allow everybody to have a choice of what news they want to listen to." He also said that he had told AT&T that “Newsmax should not be treated any differently based upon them being a conservative news outlet.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>RNC chair condemns DirecTV for “censoring” conservatives. McDaniel </b>shared a clip of <b>Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) on Newsmax castigating DirecTV </b>and commented, <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">“The woke agenda of many corporations </span>is bent on censoring voices they disagree with. @MarkwayneMullin is right – by silencing @NEWSMAX, @DIRECTV is censoring voices who pay their bills.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">January 31</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">House Republicans give floor speeches condemning DirecTV<b>. Eighteen House Republicans, including Reps. Van Drew, Lauren Boebert (CO), Eric Burlison (MO), and Matt Gaetz (FL),</b> gave demagogic Special Order speeches denouncing DirecTV for dropping Newsmax.<b> Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO)</b> wrapped up the event by noting, “many of the speakers today, many of the members of Congress who spoke, made it absolutely clear that they’re going to dedicate time and energy and staff resources to make sure that we look into this further.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Gov. DeSantis supports congressional probe of DirecTV. </b>Asked at a press conference about the debate, DeSantis said of DirecTV, “They will give different rationales for why they don’t want to do it, but the reality is they have so much other content that is very lightly viewed, and they keep that on, and it seems it is the One America News and the Newsmax that are being targeted. So I think it does warrant an investigation.” He added that Congress should “ensure that there’s not intellectual discrimination when it comes to what people are able to view.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Rep. Gaetz calls for Department of Justice,<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Federal Communications Commission </span>to investigate AT&T.</b> Gaetz tweeted: “AT&T's DirecTV has REMOVED @Newsmax from its lineup. This is blatant content-based censorship. Congress, the Antitrust Division of the DOJ, and the FCC need to investigate @ATT's decision immediately. Americans should not be denied their right to access diverse viewpoints.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">February 1</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Senate Republicans send a letter asking DirecTV to explain the decision.<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> </span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Cruz and other GOP Sens. Lindsey Graham (SC), Mike Lee (UT) and Tom Cotton (AR</span>) sent a letter to DirecTV’s leadership stating that they are “deeply disturbed” by its decision and alleging that the company may be “suppressing politically disfavored speech at the behest of liberal Democrats.” </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>RNC chair praises House Republicans</b> for demanding an investigation. McDaniel said in a statement that “DirecTV’s decision to censor Newsmax – the fourth-highest rated program on cable TV [sic] – is a slap in the face to the voters who pay the network’s bills.” She added, “I applaud House Republicans for taking important steps to hold DirecTV accountable for their censorship of Republican voices.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">February 2</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">McCarthy reiterates interest in congressional hearings. At a press conference, McCarthy said that “we should look at” DirecTV’s decision to drop Newsmax in order to ensure that the network hasn’t been “jeopardized from being on television simply because of their philosophical beliefs.”</font></div></div><div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">---</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/eric-bolling/after-directv-removes-newsmax-newsmax-host-eric-bolling-lashes-out-fox-where-are-you">https://www.mediamatters.org/eric-bolling/after-directv-removes-newsmax-newsmax-host<b>-eric-bolling-</b>lashes-out-fox-where-are-you</a>
</font></p><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/newsmax/newsmax-host-suggests-viewers-contact-congress-after-directv-dropped-channel">https://www.mediamatters.org/newsmax/newsmax-host-suggests-viewers-contact-congress-after-directv-dropped-channel</a>
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">----
</font></div><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">mma 1 23
</font></p><div class="block-quote__quote">
<p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">SEBASTIAN GORKA (NEWSMAX HOST): Yeah, absolutely stunning. I mean, a more blatant example of politically-motivated censorship is hard
to imagine. And this coming as we have all the revelations, thanks to
<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Elon Musk at Twitter, of government-sponsored censorship. Is this
something being done in league with the White House, with the DNC? We
don't know, but we know the facts of the case, that Newsmax was asking
for fair remuneration, which is exactly the same for the <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">top 75 channels
on DirecTV, 22 of which, 22 are hardcore left-wing news channels. </span></span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">So,
why is it that only Newsmax is treated like this? It's very clear - it's
because <b>Newsmax is growing in popularity, it's growing in influence,
and they want to shut down a voice that isn't the mainstream lying
media</b>,</span> but actually brings the facts to all of our viewers.</font>
<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...</font>
<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">HOGAN GIDLEY (GUEST): Thankfully, you know, I think people are outraged by it and they can take some action to try and fix it.</font></p>
</div><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">====</font></p></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">12/22 demand progress</font></div><div><p style="line-height: 19px; padding: 0px; margin: 1em auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Rupert Murdoch’s Fox Corporation has cooked up a new fee to charge TV provider DirecTV — and if it goes into effect, <strong>DirecTV, DirecTV Stream, and U-Verse customers nationwide are likely to get stuck with higher prices for their cable service.<sup>1</sup></strong> Tell DirecTV: say NO to Fox’s new carriage fee!</font></p><p style="line-height: 19px; padding: 0px; margin: 1em auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><strong>we need DirecTV to stand up to Fox to save consumers from exorbitant fees</strong> because the Supreme Court has ruled cable networks like Fox fall outside of the Federal Communications Commission’s jurisdiction.<sup>2</sup> In cases like these, <strong>smaller corporations can be our ally in fighting price gouging.</strong></font></p><p style="line-height: 19px; padding: 0px; margin: 1em auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><strong>But the fact that Fox is largely insulated from the FCC hasn’t stopped Rupert Murdoch from fighting tooth and nail to sabotage this critical institution. </strong>We haven’t had a functioning FCC for the entirety of Biden’s presidency because the Senate — pressured by Fox and Comcast — has refused to confirm Biden’s nominee for FCC Chair, Gigi Sohn. <strong>Comcast and Fox News have paid for lobbyists to actively court swing votes in the Senate against Sohn.<sup>2</sup></strong></font></p><p style="line-height: 19px; padding: 0px; margin: 1em auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Fox News has been pushing<strong> false narratives </strong>that Gigi Sohn would harm rural America, that she wants to censor conservatives, and that she’s bad for media diversity. As telecoms reporter Karl Bode put it, “None of these are supported by any facts that you can find if you spend 30 minutes objectively researching her record.”<sup>2</sup></font></p><p style="line-height: 19px; padding: 0px; margin: 1em auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Fox’s smear campaign makes clear: cable news will stop at nothing to clear the way for profiteering. We need TV providers to resist, and we demand the Senate get in gear! </font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">owned by AT &T</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/one-america-news-network/oans-last-months-directv-were-train-wreck">https://www.mediamatters.org/one-america-news-network/oans-last-months-directv-were-train-wreck</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx many</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div><b>OAN's last months on DirecTV were a train wreck</b></div><div>Since DirecTV announced it was dropping the network, OAN has become even more deranged</div><div><br /></div><div>WRITTEN BY BOBBY LEWIS</div><div><br /></div><div>PUBLISHED 04/06/22 </div><div><br /></div><div><b>As of April 5, DirecTV has removed One America News Network from its TV subscription packages. </b></div><div><br /></div><div>In January, DirecTV announced that it would not renew its contract with the far-right conspiracy theory network. Although OAN provided years of virulent bigotry and right-wing misinformation, including one reporter’s on- and off-screen attempts to overturn the 2020 election, the announcement came after a massive public backlash to a Reuters report which revealed that <b>DirecTV’s owner, AT&T, played a critical role in creating OAN and supplied 90% of its income. </b></div><div><br /></div><div><b>Once news broke of its DirecTV contract expiration, OAN filed a breach of contract lawsuit against AT&T and briefly solicited viewers for “dirt” on AT&T’s board chair.</b> <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Meanwhile, OAN programming has gotten worse since January, as the network doubled down on old staples like anti-vaccine conspiracy theories and lies about the 2020 election, as well as irresponsible coverage of new topics like the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the Supreme Court nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson.</span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">"There are no long-term studies for this vaccine. None. The only protection we have now is not to get it." - Pearson Sharp attacking COVID-19 vaccines</span></div><div><br /></div><div><b>The OAN line on COVID-19 vaccines, as delivered by correspondent Pearson Sharp, is that the vaccines are “turning into DNA” to become “part of your body’s genetic code,” meaning that “there’s a good chance they could … kill you</b>.” None of this is true, but in February, Sharp took these abject lies about vaccine mortality in a genocidal direction, telling OAN viewers that the survival of the United States depended on COVID-19 vaccines killing liberals. Sharp also appeared on Infowars, where he hypothesized that COVID-19 restrictions could spark a justified revolution. </div><div><br /></div><div><b>Though she was not OAN’s only misinformer about the 2020 election, former host Christina Bobb became the network’s face of its attempts to overturn the 2020 election results</b>. She fought for, reported on, and fundraised for the Arizona “audit,” and before she left OAN in March to work for former President Donald Trump, Bobb had begun a new phase of her pressure campaign against state-level Republicans to begin new “audits.”</div><div><br /></div><div>OAN also attached its brand of unhinged conspiracy theories to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.<b> Multiple OAN figures have suggested or stated that the Russian attack on <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">a maternity hospital in Mariupol, Ukraine, was what Sharp called a “false flag operation” connected to billionaire George Soros.</span></b></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">"It’s deeper – There’s deeper state stuff here, Debbie, don’t you think?” Dan Ball to Rep. Debbie Lesko (R-AZ) on Hunter Biden and war in Ukraine</span></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>But few OAN personalities took as much of an interest in spreading misinformation about the war in Ukraine as prime-time host Dan Ball, who repeatedly spread Russian government propaganda about nonexistent “biochemical weapons plants” in Ukraine,</b> and seems to fervently believe that the war somehow involves President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, and the 2020 Trump campaign’s old, desperate allegations against Biden and a Ukrainian energy company, Burisma. In one segment about Ukraine, Ball even agreed with a guest that the U.S. military should invade and occupy northern Mexico because of immigration.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>OAN also spent the past few weeks directing viewers’ ire toward Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson</b>. Like much of right-wing media, OAN is enthralled by the false narrative that Jackson “lets pedos out of jail early,” according to Ball, who also called the accomplished jurist “scum” based on this smear. OAN programming has <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">called Jackson part of “the pedophilia problem that is currently happening in the left,” an unmistakable reference to QAnon lies (previously seen during the pre-QAnon Pizzagate era) that liberal elites participate in the systematic sexual exploitation of children. </span></div><div><br /></div><div><b>In what may be OAN's waning days, as DirecTV essentially replaced it with Fox Nation and some of its more visible “talent” have fled the sinking shi</b>p, OAN <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">launched its own streaming service in an attempt to stay alive</span>. While subscriber numbers are not publicly known, it seems unlikely that “OANN Live” will make up for the financial loss of OAN’s DirecTV contract. </div><div><br /></div><div>More importantly, OAN’s conduct since losing DirecTV -- suing its former carrier, spreading Russian propaganda, convincing viewers that not only will vaccines kill people but some of them have to die, to say nothing of its shockingly hateful anti-LGBTQ content -- should make it clear to any TV provider that this litigious, conspiratorial disaster of a channel is simply not worth the trouble.</div><div><br /></div><div>IN THIS ARTICLE</div><div>One America News Network</div><div>Related</div><div><b>OAN host: Supreme Court nominee Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson is “scum”</b></div><div>04/01/22 12:41 PM EDT</div><div>OAN's Pearson Sharp spreads anti-vaccine conspiracy theories, claims vaccines cause death and alter your DNA</div><div>03/28/22 2:03 PM EDT</div><div><b>Another OAN host left the network to work for Donald Trump</b></div><div>03/25/22 </div><div><br /></div><div>natalie harp. bobb</div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">post ukraine trump rally small?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2022/04/directv-ditches-one-america-news/">https://www.alternet.org/2022/04/<b>directv-ditches-one-america-news/</b></a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font></div><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">trump other gop calling for mass execution of hillary dem staffers?! 2 22</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font></div><div style=""><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">elsewhere calls for mass exec of traitor dems</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/one-america-news-network/oan-pitches-new-carriers-one-its-top-personalities-pushes-conspiracy" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;"><br /></a></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/one-america-news-network/oan-pitches-new-carriers-one-its-top-personalities-pushes-conspiracy" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">https://www.mediamatters.org/one-america-news-network/oan-pitches-new-carriers-one-its-top-personalities-pushes-conspiracy</a></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx twt vid</font></div><div style=""><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>As OAN pitches to new carriers, one of its top personalities pushes conspiracy theories with Alex Jones</b></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">WRITTEN BY BOBBY LEWIS</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><br /></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">PUBLISHED 02/11/22 </div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><br /></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">On February 9, One America News Network’s Pearson Sharp appeared on Alex Jones’ eponymous show on Infowars for a nearly 40-minute interview with the conspiracy theorist who was recently found liable for defamation in lawsuits brought by some of the families of children murdered in the Sandy Hook school shooting. </span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">During the appearance, Sharp suggested pandemic restrictions could lead to a revolution; claimed Democrats might welcome an invasion by China to help fight dissenters; and compared the tracking of unvaccinated Americans to events that preceded the Holocaust.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><br /></div><div style=""><b style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">OAN is currently trying to get picked up by mainstream cable providers like Spectrum and Dish Network after</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"> DirecTV </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">announced it would not renew its contract with the network, starving OAN’s parent company of 90% of its income. </span></b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><br /></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Though Jones is most infamous for lying about the Sandy Hook massacre, he has also regularly promoted far-right extremists calling for anti-government violence. He was also involved in funding and fomenting a January 6 event that devolved into the attack on the Capitol, and he has capitalized on his lies about the 2020 election by promoting his line of ineffective supplements. </div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>During the interview, Sharp praised Jones, saying, “It’s really an honor to be on here. You’re one of the few truth-tellers in our country right now.</b>” Jones also effusively praised Sharp, telling him, “I watch [OAN] hours a day. We have it on here at the office, all over the building. We don’t have Fox on anymore, other than Tucker Carlson occasionally.” Jones also told Sharp that “you have the same views as I do on this crazy world” and at the end, he invited him to come back anytime and guest host The Alex Jones Show. </span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><br /></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Some highlights from Jones and Sharp’s lengthy conversation follow:</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b><br /></b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Sharp predicted that COVID-19 restrictions could spark a revolution, leading to Democrats inviting a Chinese invasion to keep power</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><br /></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">CitationFrom the February 9, 2022, edition of Infowars' The Alex Jones Show</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><br /></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">PEARSON SHARP (OAN REPORTER): What worries me is we are pushing back, but the American people -- you know, we’re supposed to be the cowboys. We’re supposed to be the rebels and the renegades and the revolutionaries. But throughout the last two years, we have just shown a shocking tolerance for this kind of oppression and this tyranny, and we just go along with it and bend over and accept what they’re saying. And I didn’t expect that. I thought we were going to have more of a backbone and push back. </div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><br /></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Now, we’re not like New Zealand. We’re not like England. We haven’t been pushed that far, and I think the only reason that’s happened is because we have guns and they don’t. But they’re doing everything they can to get rid of those as well.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><br /></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">ALEX JONES (HOST): I totally agree with you. So why do you think they’re suddenly claiming, “OK, we’re going to back off the masks, we’re going to back off forced injections for now.” I think that’s because they see that finally people see them, and they’ve pushed too far. They hope people go back to sleep.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><br /></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">SHARP: They do. They absolutely do. They have pushed too far. But I wonder, what is going to be the sparking point? What is going to be the Boston Massacre of our generation? What is going to be the flint stone that sets this off?</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><br /></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">And the other thing that worries me, and I’d like to get your take on this, is when we do push back, and we push back hard enough, I’m concerned that whether it’s Biden or Kamala, or whoever it is -- someone in Washington is going to say, “Look, this is too much for us to handle. Hey China, you want to help us out here? You’re good at putting down riots and oppressing people. Why don’t you come on over?”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><br /></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">…</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><br /></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">SHARP: I’m legitimately concerned that it could be a very real possibility that we have an initially soft invasion from China — where Washington rolls out the welcome mat and we have Chinese peacekeepers coming over and filling our streets — to a hard invasion where there is no rebellion against Washington anymore, but we’re just fighting an outright war against China on our doorstep. </div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><br /></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">…</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><br /></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">SHARP: Where we’re at now, how bad things have gotten, do you think that we can have -- can we recover from where we are? Can we have a peaceful recovery from where we are? Because everything I’ve seen, it looks like the <b>democratic process has failed. Negotiations have failed. And I hate to think that a revolution is the only answer, but I don’t see these people ever giving up power or backing down. </b></span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><br /></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Sharp argued that the “globalists” want to turn America into China, where “everyone is just totally controlled and cowed into submission”</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><br /></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">CitationFrom the February 9, 2022, edition of Infowars' The Alex Jones Show</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><br /></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">PEARSON SHARP (OAN REPORTER): China -- astonishingly, China is the end goal for these globalists. They want everything to be like that, where everyone is just totally controlled and cowed into submission. </div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><br /></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">When I was over there, I was a teacher at Xuchang University, which is in central China, about 12 hours west of Beijing, and it was a town of about 4 million people, which is considered small over there. And my students were really nice. But I have never met a more indoctrinated group of people in my life. And it was everybody. </div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><br /></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Everybody you would run into was just -- it’s difficult to explain to someone in the West, the difference in behavior between a Chinese national and an American. And this is a total cultural thing, before anyone jumps to racism, because you talk to people from Hong Kong, and it’s night and day. They’re like Americans. You talk to people from Taiwan, they’re like Americans. They understand what freedom is --</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><br /></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">ALEX JONES (HOST): This is three generations under communism and they’re like Martians.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><br /></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">SHARP: Yeah. They are. They absolutely are like Martians. They’re totally obedient, they don’t question anything. And they have a concept over there called “saving face,” where you know the person you’re talking to is lying, they know you know that they’re lying, but you both continue with it because you want to preserve face. And that interaction happens in everything that you do. </div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><br /></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">…</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><br /></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">ALEX JONES (HOST):<b> So all they do is just gaslight and just go on. That’s why they have so many disasters, so many plants melt down [japan?], because no one will tell anybody they’re wrong.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><br /></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">SHARP: Exactly. Yep. It’s endemic to their culture. And that, I’m afraid, is what’s going to happen here. People are just going to buy what’s being fed to them. </div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><br /></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Sharp compared federal agencies’ alleged tracking of unvaccinated employees to the beginning of the Holocaust: They are “curating a list of enemies of the state”</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><br /></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">CitationFrom the February 9, 2022, edition of Infowars' The Alex Jones Show</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><br /></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">PEARSON SHARP (OAN REPORTER): We just found out a couple days ago that there are 55 federal agencies, including five cabinet-level agencies, who are now tracking Americans and employees -- specifically of them, Treasury Department, even the military -- tracking employees who have objections to the vaccine, who apply for an exemption or something, who don’t want to get it. They’re tracking these people. <b>And you’d better believe they’re watching them closely.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><br /></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">They’re basically, what this is is curating a list of enemies of the state. And what’s terrifying is, we’ve seen this before. All of this has happened before. In 1930s Germany, IBM created a database of Jewish people in Europe, which really greatly facilitated the Nazi Germany government going after the Jews in their country.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><br /></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">And now, I feel like that’s what we’re seeing here. They’re going after red-blooded Americans who are <b>standing up for their country and don’t want to be a part of this genocide</b>. They’re tracking them. And we know where this leads.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><br /></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">ALEX JONES (HOST): That’s right, this is all -- if you had a list of like a hundred things that tyrants would do, and like Hitler did 60, and Stalin did 50, and Mao did 75, they’ve done like a hundred. They’re going down everything a tyrant would do, and they’re checking the box off.</div></div></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">yay win scalp</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div><br /></div><div>DirecTV just dealt a major blow to right-wing viewers</div><div><br /></div><div> Meaghan Ellis January 15, 2022</div><div> </div><div><b>DirecTV has announced its decision not to renew its contract with the right-wing media operation,</b> One American News Network (OANN). On Friday, January 14, the cable service provider released a statement to Bloomberg with details about the decision.</div><div><br /></div><div>“We informed Herring Networks that, following a routine internal review, we do not plan to enter into a new contract when our current agreement expires,” DirecTV said in a statement to Bloomberg.</div><div><br /></div><div>Angelo Carusone, president of the left-leaning non-profit Media Matters, also released a statement on Friday commending the cable provider's decision as she acknowledged how influential OAN has been for the spread of misinformation “DirecTV made the responsible decision to drop OAN. OAN is a cauldron of misinformation and extremism,” Carusone said in a statement.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>The decision comes after Media Matters' relentless campaigning in hopes of getting cable television providers to drop the right-wing operation. Although they acknowledged DirecTV's effort to make better decisions for the new year, Carusone went on to explain how the damage has already been done</b>.</div><div><br /></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Media Matters highlighted how miscommunication continued to run rampant for the last 12 months due to the cable provider's renewal of the contract last year. In short, the organization described the 2021 contract renewal as "a negligent mistake."</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“DirecTV made a negligent mistake in 2021 when it renewed its contract with OAN even after OAN spent weeks attacking the election and stoking the embers that helped fuel the Jan. 6 insurrection. They gave OAN a full year to undermine our democracy — and our country suffered for it.”</span></div><div><br /></div><div><b>She added, DirecTV has been “functionally propping up OAN for years. Without DirecTV, OAN would certainly not exist in its current form, and possibly not at all."</b></div><div><br /></div><div>Following the heightened controversy surrounding the politicization of the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2020 presidential election, OAN emerged as an epicenter for misinformation often echoing election falsehoods and conspiracy theories promoted by former President Donald Trump and his allies.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>RELATED ARTICLES AROUND THE WEB</div><div>Mystery Surrounds Decision By DirecTV to Drop One America News ... ›</div><div>DirecTV is dropping OANN, the conspiratorial far-right network ... ›</div><div>DirecTV says it will not enter a new contract with OANN - CBS News ›</div></div><div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font></div></div></div><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font></div><div style=""><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx twt</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><br /></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">AT&T has yet to answer for its support of OAN — and customers have had it</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><br /></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Daily Kos October 24, 2021</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b> </b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>NAACP President Derrick Johnson </b>is set to meet with AT&T leadership at the company's Washington, D.C. headquarters today to discuss AT&T's relationship with One America News (OAN). Johnson condemned AT&T after a Reuters investigation published earlier this month found that a lucrative contract with AT&T-owned platforms was responsible for 90% of OAN parent company Herring Networks, Inc.'s funding, and that AT&T even had a hand in creating OAN when it launched in 2013.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><br /></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">"We are outraged to learn that AT&T has been funneling tens of millions of dollars into OAN since the network's inception," Johnson said. "AT&T has as a result caused irreparable damage to our democracy."</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><br /></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">OAN head Robert Herring Sr. revealed in a 2019 deposition obtained by Reuters that AT&T executives were the ones who approached him about founding OAN. "They [AT&T] told us they wanted a conservative network," Herring said. "They only had one, which was Fox News, and they had seven others on the other side. When they said that, I jumped to it and built one."</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><br /></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Herring hasn't been shy about the editorial freedom and support AT&T has given his far-right network since then. During an interview on OAN last week, Herring showered AT&T with praise and even called on viewers to thank the company.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b><br /></b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>A full video of the interview also shows Herring outright lying about the controversy surrounding the Reuters report. When pressed by correspondent Pearson Sharp, Herring said that "all of our funding comes from the Herring Networks." Technically true, but much of the funding Herring Networks received appears to come from that AT&T contract.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><br /></div><div style=""><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 102, 0);">OAN began airing on U-Verse in 2014. It only started appearing on DirecTV in 2017 after parent company Herring Networks settled a case with AT&T over AT&T's acquisition of DirecTV in 2015. Herring Networks claimed that AT&T had gone back on an oral agreement that would allow OAN to be broadcast on DirecTV once the acquisition went through.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">AT&T cited the settlement as the only reason DirecTV even broadcasts OAN. "When we acquired DIRECTV, Herring pressured us for months to carry OAN. We rejected their offer and in response, Herring Networks sued us, claiming we deliberately intended to injure Herring," the company said in a statement. "Only as part of the settlement of that lawsuit did DIRECTV consent to a commercial carriage agreement with OAN four years ago."</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">OAN is available on other providers, including Verizon FiOS, GCI, and CenturyLink Prism.</span> Those companies appear to be facing minimal backlash compared with AT&T. One source told media consultant Timothy Burke that 20% of the DirecTV cancellations they'd received were because of AT&T's support for OAN.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><br /></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>AT&T really has been hit in the pocketbook lately. The company's stocks have been on a steep downturn since the Reuters report was published Oct. 6, though investors have been wary to hold onto it since the company announced a merger with Discovery Inc</b>. in May. Last week, MarketWatch reported that AT&T was headed for an 11-year low. AT&T's Q3 earnings call today didn't exactly give it the boost the company was expecting, either. The stock rose slightly then continued tumbling and is currently .85% lower than it was when markets closed yesterday.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><br /></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Last month, CEO John Stankey said the company would focus on a "multi-year effort" to rehabilitate its image. Sticking with OAN doesn't exactly help with that. It remains to be seen what AT&T will do about Herring Networks following the meeting with Johnson. For now, many customers are more than happy to pull the plug on DirecTV and other AT&T-owned ventures instead of waiting for an answer to come.</div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font></div><div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>===</b></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>1021</b></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>an</b></font></p><p><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">The far right wing cable network One America News (OAN) is <a href="https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-oneamerica-att/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">funded almost entirely by telecom and tech giant AT&T</a>.</font></p><p><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>OAN, which is even more far right than Fox News or Newsmax</b>, served as a mouthpiece for the Trump administration and is being sued <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/08/10/1026509404/dominion-sues-conservative-media-oan-newsmax-2020-election" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">in a $1.6 billion defamation case</a> by Dominion Voting Systems. The extremist network regularly promotes far right wing conspiracy theories as it attacks Democrats and the left.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">OAN, according to a<b> Reuters special report,</b> is "at the center of a bitter national divide over politics and truth."</font></p><p><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">But it's how OAN got there that is disturbing for the AT&T brand.</font></p><p><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">"AT&T has been a crucial source of funds flowing into OAN," Reuters notes, adding: "Ninety percent of OAN's revenue came from a contract with AT&T-owned television platforms, including satellite broadcaster DirecTV, according to 2020 sworn testimony by an OAN accountant."</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">AT&T, the world's largest telecom company and majority owner of DirecTV, has funneled "about $57 million" into OAN.</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> The "news" network's founder and CEO, Robert Herring Sr., "has testified he was offered $250 million for OAN in 2019. </span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Without the DirecTV deal, the accountant said under oath, the network's value 'would be zero.'"</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"If Herring Networks, for instance, was to lose or not be renewed on DirecTV, the company would go out of business tomorrow," OAN lawyer Patrick Nellies told the court, a transcript shows.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">How did a far right wing "propaganda machine," as <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/pro-trump-channel-one-america-news-deploys-a-former-kremlin-propagandist-to-blast-the-russia-hoax" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">The Daily Beast</a> called OAN in 2019, come into being, seemingly overnight?</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-left: 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>"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."</b></font></p><p><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Numerous reports have documented OAN's lies, propaganda, and mistruths, yet despite – or because of – that, Reuters notes, over a two-year period "Trump touted the network, known as @OANN online, to his 88 million Twitter followers at least 120 times."</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Read the entire Reuters report <a href="https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-oneamerica-att/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">here</a>.</font></p><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">omg</font><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> ===</font></p><p><a href="https://theintercept.com/2019/09/09/koch-anti-immigrant-data-i360/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://theintercept.com/2019/09/09/koch-anti-immigrant-data-i360/</font></a></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">lee f</font></p><p><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">In <span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bold; letter-spacing: 0.1em; box-shadow: white 0px 1px 0px, rgb(17, 17, 17) 0px 4px 0px; text-transform: uppercase;"> RECENT YEARS,</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.01em;"> </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.01em;">Charles Koch, the billionaire industrialist megadonor to Republicans and libertarian causes, has carefully recalibrated his public image, releasing</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.01em;"> </span><a href="https://time.com/5491587/koch-brothers-network-immigration-reform/" style="letter-spacing: 0.01em; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">a variety</a><span style="letter-spacing: 0.01em;"> </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.01em;">of </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/congress-must-act-on-the-dreamers/2017/12/14/3dc0ab98-e053-11e7-bbd0-9dfb2e37492a_story.html" style="letter-spacing: 0.01em; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">statements</a><span style="letter-spacing: 0.01em;"> to assert that he</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.01em;"> </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-202/2019/04/03/daily-202-charles-koch-wants-a-more-open-border-immigration-is-one-reason-he-s-backed-away-from-the-gop/5ca38a9b1b326b0f7f38f2eb/" style="letter-spacing: 0.01em; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">supports immigration</a><span style="letter-spacing: 0.01em;"> </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.01em;">and</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.01em;"> </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/01/29/koch-network-condemns-trump-ban-on-refugees-and-immigrants/?postshare=9791485720737432" style="letter-spacing: 0.01em; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">opposes</a><span style="letter-spacing: 0.01em;"> </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.01em;">President Donald Trump’s blatant scapegoating of undocumented immigrants and foreigners.</span></font></p><div data-reactid="207" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1em; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">At the same time, however, Koch’s sprawling political network’s in-house technology company has mined consumer data to motivate Republican voters with dehumanizing messages that depict immigrants as an invading army of criminals and potential terrorists.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1em; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Last year, when many GOP candidates across the country turned to vicious anti-immigrant advertisements to turn out voters in the midterm elections, some turned to i360, Koch’s state-of-the-art data analytics company. The company is one of the several appendages of the Koch political machine — one that includes a suite of voter outreach organization, lobbying, and campaign messaging tools.</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1em; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Dozens of GOP candidates for state and federal office contracted with the Koch data company to identify voter segments and push out targeted ads on television and social media in 2018. And the company looks to be expanding its role in GOP campaigns going into 2020; more than a dozen federal candidates list the firm as a contractor.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1em; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The path to one Republican’s successful 2018 Senate run is detailed on i360’s website. <b>Then-Tennessee Rep. Marsha Blackburn</b> aired at least four different television advertisements and a wave of social media advertisements focused on immigration, often with false or inflammatory language.<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> She ended up beating out Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen, a Democrat, who had been leading in the polls for months.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1em; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bold; letter-spacing: 0.1em; box-shadow: white 0px 1px 0px, rgb(17, 17, 17) 0px 4px 0px; text-transform: uppercase;">“A CARAVAN OF</span> 14,000 illegal immigrants is marching on America … gang members, known criminals, people from the Middle East, possibly even terrorists,” <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pm4XcREY0E" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">intoned</a> an ad for Blackburn, flashing images of Hispanic men and warning of a flood of immigrants welcomed by her Democratic opponent, Bredesen.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1em; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Phil Bredesen gave driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants. Phil Bredesen opposes the Trump immigration ban,” <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtQoGaRncf0" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">declared</a> another Blackburn ad. At one point, the ad displays an image of the Middle East and Africa.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1em; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The messages about the caravan were far-fetched given the fact that there is <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/22/us/politics/migrant-caravan-fact-check.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">no evidence</a> that the migrant caravan from Honduras contained any terrorists or members from the Middle East, as fact-checkers noted during the campaign. The driver’s license claim was also <a href="https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2018/oct/25/marsha-blackburn/marsha-blackburn-falsely-says-phil-bredesen-lured-/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">misleading</a>: Tennessee briefly offered driver’s licenses to those without a Social Security number through a 2001 law signed by former Republican Gov. Don Sundquist. The law was later amended and repealed under Bredesen’s tenure as governor.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1em; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>“It was Phil Bredesen who lured illegal immigrants to Tennessee,”</b> other Blackburn advertisements on television<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"> </strong>and social media <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGtlJqdKXb0&feature=youtu.be" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">claimed</a>.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1em; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“The invading force approaching our southern border is seeking to enter the country is wrong,” read a grammatically challenged <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6312574-Blackburn-Senate-Ad.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">paid advertisement</a> on Facebook posted by the Blackburn campaign. Another <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6312575-Blackburn-Senate-Ad-2.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">promoted post</a> from the Blackburn campaign decried the “illegal alien mob marching on our border.”</font></p></div><div data-reactid="210" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1em; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The ads, crude as they might have appeared, were distributed using an empirical approach to motivating Republican voters. The Blackburn campaign had turned to Koch’s i360 company to develop “a series of custom predictive models” to peel Republican voters away from Bredesen, according to a testimonial for potential clients.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1em; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Blackburn, a firebrand of the religious right who positioned herself as a steadfast ally to Trump and opponent of <a href="https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2016/06/15/marsha-blackburn-backs-trumps-terror-immigration-plan-we-need-to-halt-the-migration-of-syrian-refugees/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">allowing</a> Muslim refugees into the country, was clearly aligned with Koch priorities.<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"> </span></b>Blackburn also supports judicial appointments favored by the business-friendly Federalist Society, corporate tax cuts, and scaling back most forms of environmental regulations, the criteria on which the Koch network has made its political endorsements historically.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1em; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Americans for Prosperity, the primary political advocacy arm of the Koch network, founded by Charles’s brother David<b style="box-sizing: border-box;">, </b>who passed away in August, and financed by Charles’s close-knit group of likeminded business owners, spent <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/races/outside-spending?cycle=2018&id=TNS1" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">$5.6 million</a> to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnXjqtqdGD4" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">support</a> Blackburn’s Senate run through its nonprofit and Super PAC arm. That much is well reported and public. But the role of i360 in guiding the campaign’s anti-immigrant messages did not become clear until after the election.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1em; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bold; letter-spacing: 0.1em; box-shadow: white 0px 1px 0px, rgb(17, 17, 17) 0px 4px 0px; text-transform: uppercase;">THE COMPANY SEGMENTED</span> Republican supporters for Bredesen, a Democrat, using its vast database of voter profiles. The data suggested immigration could be used as a wedge. “From there,” the <a href="https://www.i-360.com/study/blackburn/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">testimonial notes</a>, “i360 further segmented the universe using the Sanctuary Cities model which identified voters likely to oppose Sanctuary City policies like allowing illegal immigrants to get drivers’ licenses — a policy Bredesen favored while Governor.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1em; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The i360 database was integrated into the Blackburn campaign’s media strategy.</b> The company’s television advertising service, <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6313792-i360005-DataDictionary-RabbitEars-Round5.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">i360 Rabbit Ears</a>, allows campaigns to target television programs and schedules favored by various behavioral profiles. I360 sorts television programs by over 40 voter profiles, including anti-immigrant sentiment. The company <a href="https://www.i-360.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/D2.pdf" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">refers</a> to this voting bloc as: “Individuals who have a high likelihood of believing that undocumented immigrants should be required to leave the United States.”</font></p></div><div data-reactid="213" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1em; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Blackburn’s media consultants, through a company called Smart Media Group, not only relied on i360 data to inform its advertisement buying strategy, but its data findings were merged into Blackburn’s canvassing effort as well. Field staff used the i360 voter profiles to determine which messages to use when knocking on doors of potential voters and could “educate voters about Marsha’s positions by showing them videos right from their iPads.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1em; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The i360 team also developed “140 unique segments,” an advertising term that refers to unique demographic profiles, “against which the campaign delivered millions of impressions across several different platforms including Google and Facebook.” The individual segments allowed the Blackburn campaign to send customized messages to each voter profile over a variety of platforms, a dynamic that allowed the campaign to “tailor their messaging to ensure they were talking about the issues that mattered to each voter.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1em; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">In the end, i360 boasts that the Blackburn campaign used its technology to shape 3 million voter contact calls, 1.5 million doors knocked, $8.4 million spent on television ads, and 314,000 campaign text messages — advocacy that led to Blackburn’s commanding victory over Bredesen, who had been favored in the polls for the months leading up to the election.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1em; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Federal Election Commission records show that Blackburn’s campaign paid $188,366 to i360 for a variety of services — a small price for the significant campaign services the company provided.</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1em; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bold; letter-spacing: 0.1em; box-shadow: white 0px 1px 0px, rgb(17, 17, 17) 0px 4px 0px; text-transform: uppercase;">FOUNDED IN THE</span> aftermath of the 2012 election, in which Republican candidates favored by Koch fared poorly, i360 was envisioned as a way to revolutionize right-wing pressure campaigns and election efforts by incorporating the latest in data science. The company, based in the same Arlington, Virginia, office complex that houses other Koch groups, harvests troves of data to build profiles of every voter and potential voter in the country. Over the course of four years, the Koch network poured <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2014/12/koch-brothers-rnc-113359" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">$50 million</a> into i360 to develop its capabilities.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1em; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Journalist Sue Halperin noted that i360 acts as somewhat of a data broker, <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/151548/political-campaigns-big-data-manipulate-elections-weaken-democracy" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">combining</a> “commercial sources, such as shopping habits, credit status, homeownership, and religious affiliation, with voting histories, social media content, and any connections a voter might have had with advocacy groups or other campaigns” to build its voter database.</font></p></div><div data-reactid="223" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1em; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The i360 profiles offer a dizzying array of ways to segment voter preferences.</b> The company allows GOP campaigns to target voters based on equity held in their home, likelihood that an individual has been personally affected by the heroin crisis, views on gay marriage, interest in dogs, levels of religious devotion, and even psychological profiles that measure an individual’s ego, based on previous purchases of <a href="https://www.i-360.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Offline_3.24.17.pdf" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">monogrammed clothing</a>.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1em; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Notably, according to CNET, i360 <a href="https://www.cnet.com/news/how-your-personal-data-is-used-to-create-a-perfect-midterm-election-ad/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">partners</a> with D2 Media Sales, a joint venture with DirectTV and Dish, </font><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">“<b>‘to push TV ads to specific households that meet a candidate’s criteria ‘no matter which stations or programs they’re watching.'”</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1em; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And the firm appears to still be a central cog in the Koch advocacy machine. Demeter Analytics Services, the holding company that owns i360, is listed as a subsidiary of the Seminar Network Chamber of Commerce, the nonprofit that serves as the central clearing house for the Koch political spending, in its most recent <a href="https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/453732750/201813199349312776/IRS990ScheduleR" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">tax filing</a>.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1em; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Media attention has swirled over the role of technology firms that have harnessed sophisticated targeting methods to influence campaigns. Billionaire hedge fund investor Robert Mercer, once a participant in the Koch network, split off and formed his own array of groups, including an effort to fund Cambridge Analytica’s 2016 targeting methods. Less scrutiny has been paid to i360’s role in shaping the political climate. Both firms vacuum up incredible amounts of data to develop personalized voter outreach methods, allowing campaigns to peer deeply into the hearts of voters and trigger emotional responses — a revolution in campaign strategy that gives well-heeled donors with access to the technology a tremendous advantage.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1em; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Over the last year, Charles Koch has stated his support for lofty, high-minded goals such as ending over-incarceration, scaling back America’s military empire, defending free speech, and providing legal status for undocumented youth. These laudable positions, however, have not translated to changing the behavior of his political advocacy apparatus.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1em; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Intercept has previously reported on Koch’s <a href="https://theintercept.com/2015/11/03/soft-on-crime-ads/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">financing</a> of tough-on-crime advocacy and <a href="https://theintercept.com/2016/11/04/koch-senate-hawks/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">support</a> for Congress’ most militaristic, surveillance-friendly lawmakers. That the Koch political operation also deliberately fine-tunes anti-immigrant messages further undermines Koch’s purported beliefs. Neither Blackburn nor Mark Holden, the Koch Industries executive who simultaneously helps manage the company’s political and philanthropic investments, responded to a request for comment.</font></p></div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">==</font></p></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>