Speaker 1: Hey, this is this is really a disgusting story, not only of
media propaganda, but also in a sense of media consolidation. Reuters has done a very, very good
special report about how the radical, outrageous right wing media network oh one America news.
The people we would see in the press briefing room yelling questions from the back at Trump
and even to Jen Psaki, to some degree. They are 90 percent funded by AT&T, the same AT&T
who bought WarnerMedia, which owns CNN. So this story is about a lot of different things.
The report on Reuters is extensive and we're linking to it. OK. We today, for time purposes,
are going to look at sort of a summary from media site of the Reuters investigation.
OK, one America News, The self-styled news channel that pumps out pro-Trump propaganda,
has received tens of millions of dollars in funding from AT&T, according to a stunning
new report. Reuters unearthed how the far right channel, which distinguished itself in cable
news by peddling the most extreme 2020 election conspiracy theories, is being propped up by the
world's largest communications company. A Reuters review of court records shows the role AT&T
played in creating and funding on a network that continues to spread conspiracy theories
about 2020 and covered the role that AT&T played in the launch of OANN was revealed by the
network's founder, Robert Herring, senior, in a deposition obtained by Reuters. Quote OAN founder
and chief executive Robert Herring, senior, has testified that the inspiration to launch
0& in 2013 came from came from AT&T executives. They told us they wanted a conservative network.
They only had one, which was Fox News, and they had seven others. On the other left wing side,
when they said that, I jumped to it and built one. Since then, AT&T has been a crucial source
of funds flowing into OANN, providing tens of millions in revenue. Court records show
90 percent of Owens revenue came from a contract with AT&T owned TV platforms,
including DirecTV. What makes this bizarre tale even thornier? AT&T owns Warner Media, which is
the parent company of CNN. CNN's parent company is funding O A N and again, I encourage you to
check out the entire Reuters report. So there are I mean, there are so many stories here, guys.
First of all, maybe antitrust laws are there for a reason. Maybe we should be having more than just
a handful of internet service providers who are vertically integrated and also own the programing.
OK, that's that's number one. We have many of these laws on the books. There's been no appetite
from Republicans or Democrats really in enforcing the stuff you do hear sometimes from Democrats.
We got to break up this, that the other thing we've heard it from Bernie, Elizabeth Warren,
not nearly the topic that it should be. That's one story. Second story. CNN
has done a bunch of critiques of OANN. OK. They've exposed Owen's lack of journalistic integrity, and
they did it accurately. Does CNN know when they do that that the parent company is the same? They're
owned by Warner, which is owned by AT&T, and AT&T is not owned but is the main funder of own.
It wasn't mentioned in the segments that were done on CNN. Makes me wonder whether they even know it,
if either way, you would think it's something that should be disclosed now. Full disclosure
It appears as though AT&T also owns this show. No, I'm getting it. That's not the type of disclosure
I'm talking about. It appears as though AT&T is in the process of selling WarnerMedia. So
at some point, the CNN owned connection may no longer be true. But this is another example
also of how we have to remember the primary bias of corporate media. Is money. MSNBC
is corporate media, and editorially they lean left. Fox News is corporate media editorially.
They don't just lean right. I mean, Fox is on the right, something different than what MSNBC is on
the left. CNN has been anti-Trump. I would say objectively so because of the disastrous Trump
did during his presidency. But fundamentally, CNN is a for profit entity, and that's the number one
bias above all else. And we have to remember that a lot of this stuff, the technology
for delivering this stuff becomes invisible. And we just look at, Oh, it's, you know,
Rachel Maddow here and then it's Hannity here. We've got to remember the technology
has its own biases and structure that kind of overrides all of this other stuff. And AT&T,
we've got stuff that's considered more left and stuff that's considered basically, we just want
to be able to monetize all these different things. That's the bottom line. And whether ultimately we
will see any serious enforcement of antitrust, I don't know. But there is certainly, you know,
the problem is that even now that Republicans talk about antitrust and breaking up companies, they're
really just wanting to break up social media or control social media so that Twitter can't ban
conservatives like it's completely cynical. Their newfound desire to deal with antitrust
the laws have been on the books for decades could have been enforced all along, and they just don't
want to do it, so we'll see what happens. Read the report from Reuters on AT&T funding. OANN
will post a link to it in the description to the YouTube video, and we'll be back right after this.