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Comment by KumaBear | Hacker News Reader

The real question who signed it?

OANN.

OANN might as well be a high school newspaper at this point.

It might as well be an official propaganda arm of the dominant faction in the increasingly authoritarian regime of the most powerful nation on the planet, which is a bit more significant than a high school paper.

I mean, that was hyperbole, but OANN isn’t even available on Comcast as far as I’m aware. I would LOVE it if this was the Republican party’s main propaganda arm.

Well, I said “an”, not “the main” for a reason, but OAN is:

(1) after having been dropped form all major cable and satellite carriers, coming back since Trump came to power (picked up by Spectrum earlier this year, and given the administration openly favoring them and using licensing pressure to shape carrier decisions, that seems likely to spread) [0], and

(2) under the Trump Administration, the source of news coverage for the literal government media (Voice of America.) [1]

[0] https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/herring-networks-an...

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/07/voice-americ...

Hey I was on the staff of my high school newspaper and we took our journalism very seriously.

haha I have no doubt. I was mostly speaking about distribution, not quality. I'm sure a middle school newspaper would have more journalistic integrity than OANN.

Wasn't OANN started by AT&T as a way to push propaganda favoring the corporation-friendly tax package in Trump's first term?

As an FCC regulated company AT&T is obligated to not discriminate in signing contracts. So AT&T (or the erstwhile DirecTV) cannot refuse OANN.

It wasn’t started by AT&T.

> Wasn't OANN started by AT&T as a way to push propaganda favoring the corporation-friendly tax package in Trump's first term?

"AT&T has been a crucial source of funds flowing into OAN, providing tens of millions of dollars in revenue," while "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" [1].

That said, there is no evidence this was done "to push propaganda favoring the corporation-friendly tax package in Trump's first term.” Simpler: they chased Fox, Newsmax et al's dollars.

[1] https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-onea...

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