# Robert Herring Sr. Founder and CEO of [[One America News Network]] (OANN), the far-right pro-Trump cable news channel based in San Diego. Herring built OANN as an explicitly pro-Trump alternative to [[Fox News]] from the right, and has been documented personally intervening in editorial decisions to ensure coverage aligned with his political preferences. ## Background Herring made his fortune in the electronics manufacturing business (Hi-Q Electronics) before pivoting to media with the founding of OANN in 2013. His move into media was explicitly ideological — he saw a gap in the market for a cable news channel that would be more reliably pro-Trump and less likely to deliver coverage unfavorable to the Republican right than [[Fox News]]. ## Editorial Intervention Leaked internal communications have revealed that Herring directly directed OANN's editorial coverage in ways that go well beyond the typical owner-publisher relationship. He instructed staff to cover specific pro-Trump stories, avoid coverage critical of Trump, and shape content to serve political goals. This hands-on editorial intervention makes OANN unusual even by the standards of ideologically-driven media — it functioned less as a news organization with a conservative editorial perspective and more as a direct extension of Herring's political preferences. ## The DirecTV Crisis OANN's survival became precarious when DirecTV (an AT&T company) dropped the channel from its lineup in 2022 following criticism of OANN's content and its role in spreading misinformation. The carriage fee revenue from DirecTV had been essential to OANN's business model. The loss forced significant restructuring and raised questions about the network's long-term viability. ## Family Business OANN operates as a family business — Herring's son Charles Herring serves as president of the network, keeping operational control within the family. ## Position in the Ecosystem Herring represents a specific type of right-wing media ownership: the wealthy conservative businessman who builds media as an ideological project rather than primarily a profit-maximizing enterprise. His willingness to operate OANN at a loss (or marginal profitability) in service of pro-Trump political goals distinguishes him from more commercially-driven media operators like [[Christopher Ruddy]] of [[Newsmax]], whose Trump loyalty is rooted in personal friendship and business calculation rather than pure ideology. [[Chanel Rion]], OANN's most visible on-air personality, has served as the public face Herring's machine. In this sense, OANN under Herring functioned as a form of ideological dark money — subsidized political influence dressed as news.