MSNBC anchor Brian Williams closed out his show, “The 11th Hour,” Monday evening with a commentary on the recent reporting that right-wing “news” network One America News (OAN) had been heavily funded by AT&T, and video of his remarks is going viral on social media.
Last week, Reuters revealed that OAN received millions in start-up money from AT&T:
AT&T has been a crucial source of funds flowing into OAN, providing tens of millions of dollars in revenue, court records show. 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.
Ironically, AT&T also owns Warner Media, which is the parent corporation of CNN.
That led Williams to take a jab at OAN and its viewers:
“If you should stumble upon it on cable, you can also pick up their signal if you happen to angle your tinfoil hat just right. You’ll see it has the patina of respectability until someone starts talking. So, it didn’t go over well with AT&T customers when they recently learned in an astonishing report by Reuters that AT&T helped to build OAN and continues to subsidize the network, as OAN as paid millions to AT&T to make it part of their dish network slate. The problem for AT&T is they’re losing customers over this.”
One America News has indeed become the far right alternative to Fox News, which has lost favor with former President Donald Trump and many of his followers who are still enraged that Fox dared to call the election for President Joe Biden once it became clear Biden had won a decisive victory in the 2020 election. On several occasions, he has given interviews to OAN and told his supporters they should get their news from the outlet, tweeting back in December of last year:
“Hope everybody is watching @OANN right now,” Trump tweeted on December 1, citing a dubious report about a truck carrying more than 100,000 fake ballots. “Other media afraid to show.”
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