One America News Network


One America News Network, also known as One America News, is a far-right news and political commentary television channel and website founded by Robert Herring Sr. and owned by Herring Networks, Inc., that launched on July 4, 2013. The network is headquartered in San Diego, California, and operates news bureaus in Washington, D.C., and New York City.
The company said in 2019 OAN was available in 35 million homes and that its audience ranged from 150,000 to as large as 500,000, though that year Nielsen Media Research estimated its viewership to be about 14,000. By July 2022, the network was available only to a few hundred thousand people who subscribed to smaller cable providers.
In 2019, Robert Herring Sr. testified in court that the network was created at the urging of executives of AT&T, which through its subsidiary DirecTV has since been the source of up to 90% of the network's revenues. DirecTV stopped carrying OAN in 2022.
The network's prime-time political talk shows have a conservative perspective, and the channel has described itself as one of the "greatest supporters" of Donald Trump. Trump has promoted both the network and some of its hosts. The channel is known for promoting falsehoods and conspiracy theories.

History

OAN was announced on March 14, 2013, by Herring Networks, Inc., an independent media company founded in 2003 by conservative businessman Robert Herring, Sr. The OAN channel originally debuted in partnership with The Washington Times, a conservative daily newspaper founded by the Unification Church from South Korea. Herring said in 2013 that under OAN's agreement with The Washington Times, the new network could use any Times content, but was not obligated to do so; he also said at the time that between 60 and 65 Herring Broadcasting employees spent "most of their days" on One America.
Herring told the 2013 Conservative Political Action Conference that "Fox News has done a great job serving the center-right and independent audiences", but that the audience's alternative news sources lacked variety.
Reuters reported in October 2021 that it had reviewed court documents showing the network was created in 2013 at the urging of executives of AT&T, which has since been the source of up to 90% of the network's revenues. In a 2020 deposition, a company accountant testified that lacking a contract with AT&T subsidiary DirecTV, the network's value "would be zero." Court documents showed the network promised to "cast a positive light" on AT&T during newscasts.
In July 2014, OAN relocated its news and production studios from the Washington Times building to 101 Constitution Avenue NW, near the Capitol.
At the beginning of 2020, it was reported that Trump allies were looking into purchasing OAN.
In November 2020, YouTube suspended OAN for one week and ended its ability to monetize its existing content as a first strike under its three-strike community guideline violation policy for advertising a false cure for COVID-19.
As of April 2021, its YouTube channel had close to 1.5 million subscribers. Approximately 150 employees worked at its San Diego headquarters.
DirecTV said in January 2022 that it would not renew its contract with Herring Networks, which expired in April 2022, affecting OAN and its sister channel AWE, which would be removed from DirecTV's satellite and U-verse TV services. In response, OAN host Dan Ball said that OAN "is now at war with AT&T" and urged viewers to dig up "dirt" on AT&T board chairman William Kennard. The channels were dropped from DirecTV on April 4, 2022; some staff members left the network for other employment.
Verizon Fios, OAN's largest remaining carrier, notified its customers on July 21, 2022, that it could not come to terms to renew its contract with OAN and would remove the network from its service in nine days. August 1, 2022 was OAN's final day on cable or satellite, marking the end of OAN's availability on major carriers. OAN commentator Pearson Sharp said on-air that OAN was dropped because Verizon is a "radical Marxist" corporation.
In December 2024, following former Congressman Matt Gaetz's withdrawal from his nomination to United States Attorney General by Donald Trump due to allegations of sexual assault, it was announced that Gaetz would be joining OAN to host a new show every weekday starting in January 2025.
On May 7, 2025, Kari Lake announced that OAN will provide news coverage for Voice of America. The network was added nationwide to Spectrum systems in July 2025.

Programming

Shows airing on OAN include: Tipping Point with Kara McKinney, Real America with Dan Ball, Weekly Briefing with John Hines, Fine Point with Chanel Rion, The Real Story with Riley Lewis and Nights with Chris Boyle.
In August 2014, OAN launched the show On Point with Tomi Lahren. Many clips from the program went viral, and by 2015 Lahren had gained widespread attention for her commentaries. On August 19, 2015, Lahren aired her final show at OAN. On the week of August 24, 2015 former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin guest-hosted a program on the network.
In 2019, the channel aired Claws of the Red Dragon, an NTD Canada-produced docufilm with Steve Bannon as its American distributor.

Content

OAN is known for its pro-Donald Trump content, promotion of conspiracy theories such as election tampering in November 2020, and criticisms of the mainstream media. OAN has described itself as one of the "greatest supporters" of Trump. It has been described as a political propaganda outlet.
Former producer Martin Golingan said in 2021, "The Herrings run OAN on this McDonald's business model where you keep the customer happy and the business runs itself. If the customers happen to be crazy conspiracy consumers, then that's what they're selling. They are grifters in the outrage culture".

Pro-Trump content

OAN is pro-Trump. The father of Charles Herring, Robert Herring Sr., founder and CEO of the network, has ordered producers to promote pro-Trump stories, anti-Clinton stories, and anti-abortion stories and to minimize stories about Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Herring prohibited the network from running stories about polls that did not show Trump in the lead during the 2016 election. Former producer Marissa Gonzales said in 2021, "If there was any story involving Trump, we had to only focus on either the positive information or basically create positive information. It was never, never the full truth."
During the 2016 presidential campaign, the channel ran a special titled Betrayal at Benghazi: The Cost of Hillary Clinton's Dereliction and Greed. Herring, the owner of the channel, sent his producers a report that falsely claimed that Hillary Clinton had a brain tumor and asking them to check up on it. He also shared a report with producers claiming that Planned Parenthood had promoted abortion and ordered them to minimize coverage of Pope Francis's US visit owing to the Pope's calls for action on global warming. Herring also repeatedly ordered his producers not to cover stories pertaining to Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
According to former and current employees at the channel as well as internal e-mails, by July 2017 the executives of the channel had directed the channel to "scuttle stories about police shootings, encourage antiabortion stories, minimize coverage of Russian aggression, and steer away from the new president's troubles."
In October 2017, the channel claimed without evidence that a "report" had been published that showed "U.K. Crime Rises 13% Annually Amid Spread of Radical Islamic Terror". Trump later repeated this falsehood, suggesting that he learned of it from OAN.
In June 2017, OAN was granted a permanent seat in the White House's James Brady briefing room. The network's Chief White House Correspondent, Trey Yingst, was one of the top five most called-upon reporters covering the Trump administration. Trump has been repeatedly called for questions from OAN during press conferences, including in February 2017 when Yingst asked the president about his campaign's contacts with the Russian government. Also in February 2017, OAN was invited to a network lunch with Trump. In August 2017, Trump praised OAN, saying: "It's a great network". In response, OAN CEO Robert Herring said that OAN considers itself a tough but fair presence in the White House press corps.
OAN supported the Trump administration's revocation of CNN reporter Jim Acosta's press credentials; most major media outlets, including the conservative Fox News, opposed this decision. In a statement, Robert Herring attacked Fox News, saying he "can't believe Fox is on the other side."
Rudy Giuliani has promoted conspiracy theories related to the Trump–Ukraine scandal on OAN.
On January 12, 2020, an OAN broadcast promoted debunked conspiracy theories alleging illegal wiretapping of Trump. OAN broadcasts all of Trump's speeches uninterrupted.
In August 2020, OAN tweeted a promotion for a television segment entitled "America Under Siege: The Attempt to Overthrow President Trump." The tweet asserted that ongoing demonstrations in the aftermath of the George Floyd killing constituted a "coup attempt" that was "led by a well funded network of anarchists trying to take down the President." Trump retweeted the message.
On February 11, 2021, after Trump had left office, OAN aired a "tribute to his accomplishments" set to a reading of Rudyard Kipling's poem "If—". The video was credited to Harrison Hill Smith, an InfoWars contributor.
In March 2024, the network promoted a false story claiming that Michael Cohen was the one who had carried out an affair with Stormy Daniels and that he had used it to "extort" the Trump Organization. The network reached a legal settlement with Cohen in April, acknowledging that the original story was false.