# One America News Network (OAN / OANN) One America News Network, founded on July 4, 2013 by [[Robert Herring Sr.]] and operated by Herring Networks, is a far-right cable news channel based in San Diego. OAN positioned itself as a more aggressively pro-Trump alternative to [[Fox News]], airing extended coverage of Trump rallies, election fraud claims, and COVID conspiracy theories. It achieved notoriety through its White House correspondent [[Chanel Rion]] and became a significant node in the most extreme end of mainstream-adjacent conservative cable news. ## Robert Herring Sr. and the Founding [[Robert Herring Sr.]], a wealthy California businessman who made his money in electronics manufacturing, founded OAN with an explicitly political mission: create a news network more loyal to Trump and the Republican Party than Fox News. Reuters reporting revealed that OAN's programming has been directly shaped by Herring's directives to promote pro-Trump content and avoid stories that could embarrass Republicans. Leaked emails showed Herring directly intervened in editorial decisions to ensure favorable coverage. ## Chanel Rion [[Chanel Rion]] serves as OAN's White House chief correspondent — the network's public face and most prominent personality. Rion's reporting style is characterized by openly advocacy journalism on behalf of Trump, with minimal pretense of neutrality. She is married to Courtney Rion, a Republican political operative, and has used her White House access to serve as a reliable amplifier of Trump administration messaging. She was denied a White House press pass for periods due to concerns about OAN's credibility. ## Coverage and Misinformation OAN became notorious during the Trump era for: - Promoting the stolen election narrative more aggressively than any other cable outlet - Platforming conspiracy theories about COVID-19, including content later retracted or corrected under legal pressure - Featuring coverage sympathetic to foreign adversaries including [[Russia]] - Hiring Kristian Rouz, a reporter who simultaneously wrote for Sputnik, the Russian state propaganda outlet ## Christina Bobb [[Christina Bobb]], formerly an OAN anchor, left the network to work directly for Trump's legal team and the Republican National Committee. Her trajectory — from OAN to the RNC's election integrity operation — illustrates the porous boundary between OAN's "journalism" and Republican Party operational activity. During the [[2021 Maricopa County Presidential Ballot Audit]], OAN had embedded access to the count while Bobb raised money for it on air. Her group, Voices and Votes, gave $605,000. ## Distribution Battles OAN reaches an estimated 150,000 to 500,000 viewers — small by cable news standards but significant for a niche far-right outlet. AT&T's DirecTV, which had been OAN's primary cable carrier and provided the bulk of its carriage revenue, dropped the network in 2022. Without DirecTV, OAN lost access to roughly 90% of its cable subscribers. The network has pivoted to streaming distribution, but the DirecTV loss severely curtailed its reach. ## Legal Exposure OAN has faced defamation lawsuits related to its election fraud coverage, including suits from [[Dominion Voting Systems]] and [[Smartmatic]]. OAN settled with Dominion in 2022. These legal pressures, combined with the DirecTV deplatforming, created significant financial strain. ## Position in the Ecosystem OAN occupies the most extreme end of cable news — to the right of [[Newsmax]] in Trump loyalty, operating with fewer journalistic guardrails than even the Gateway Pundit's print format. It functioned as a proof-of-concept that there was a market to the right of [[Fox News]] willing to consume more extreme content, and as a validation apparatus for Trump's most committed supporters.