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 yearNielsen Media Research estimated its viewership to be about 14,000.[29][6] By July 2022, the network was available only to a few hundred thousand people who subscribed to smaller cable providers.[32]
In 2019, Robert Herring Sr. testified in court that the network was created at the urging of executives ofAT&T, which through its subsidiaryDirecTV has since been the source of up to 90% of the network's revenues.[2] DirecTV stopped carrying OAN in 2022.[33]
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 withThe Washington Times, a conservative daily newspaper founded by theUnification Church from South Korea.[48][49] Herring said in 2013 that under OAN's agreement withThe Washington Times, the new network could use anyTimes 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.[50]
Reuters reported in October 2021 that it had reviewed court documents showing the network was created in 2013 at the urging of executives ofAT&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.[2]
In July 2014, OAN relocated its news and production studios from the Washington Times building to 101 Constitution Avenue NW, near the Capitol.[53]
At the beginning of 2020, it was reported that Trump allies were looking into purchasing OAN.[54]
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 afalse cure forCOVID-19.[45]
As of April 2021, its YouTube channel had close to 1.5 million subscribers.[55] Approximately 150 employees worked at its San Diego headquarters.[55]
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 channelAWE, which would be removed from DirecTV's satellite and U-verse TV services.[56][57][58] 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 chairmanWilliam Kennard.[59][60] The channels were dropped from DirecTV on April 4, 2022; some staff members left the network for other employment.[61]
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.[62] August 1, 2022 was OAN's final day on cable or satellite,[63] marking the end of OAN's availability on major carriers.[64] OAN commentator Pearson Sharp said on-air that OAN was dropped because Verizon is a "radical Marxist" corporation.[65][63]
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, andNights with Chris Boyle.[67]
In August 2014, OAN launched the showOn Point withTomi Lahren. Many clips from the program wentviral, and by 2015 Lahren had gained widespread attention for her commentaries. On August 19, 2015, Lahren aired her final show at OAN.[68][69] On the week of August 24, 2015 formerRepublican vice presidential candidateSarah Palin guest-hosted a program on the network.[70]
Former producer Martin Golingan said in 2021, "The Herrings run OAN on thisMcDonald'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".[73]
A former OAN producer testified in adefamation lawsuit against the network by formerDominion Voting Systems executive Eric Coomer that he and his colleagues were directed to useThe Gateway Pundit as a source. A January 2021 email from the news director encouraged producers to read stories fromThe Gateway Pundit,The Blaze andThe Epoch Times for inspiration.[76]
OAN is pro-Trump.[35][77][78][79][29] The father of Charles Herring,[51]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 the2016 presidential election.[35] Herring prohibited the network from running stories about polls that did not show Trump in the lead during the 2016 election.[35] 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."[2]
During the 2016 presidential campaign, the channel ran a special titledBetrayal 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 thatHillary Clinton had a brain tumor and asking them to check up on it. He also shared a report with producers claiming thatPlanned Parenthood had promoted abortion and ordered them to minimize coverage ofPope Francis's US visit owing tothe Pope's calls for action on global warming. Herring also repeatedly ordered his producers not to cover stories pertaining toRussian interference in the 2016 presidential election.[35]
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."[35]
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".[80] Trump later repeated this falsehood, suggesting that he learned of it from OAN.[40][81]
In June 2017, OAN was granted a permanent seat in theWhite House's James Brady briefing room.[82] The network's Chief White House Correspondent,Trey Yingst, was one of the top five most called-upon reporters covering theTrump administration.[83] 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 withthe Russian government.[84] Also in February 2017, OAN was invited to a network lunch with Trump.[85] 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.[86]
OAN supported the Trump administration's revocation ofCNN reporterJim Acosta's press credentials; most major media outlets, including the conservativeFox News, opposed this decision. In a statement, Robert Herring attacked Fox News, saying he "can't believe Fox is on the other side."[87][88][89]
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 theGeorge 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.[21]
On February 11, 2021, after Trump had left office, OAN aired a "tribute to his accomplishments" set to a reading ofRudyard Kipling's poem "If—". The video was credited to Harrison Hill Smith, anInfoWars contributor.[94]
In March 2024, the network promoted a false story claiming thatMichael Cohen was the one who hadcarried out an affair withStormy Daniels and that he had used it to "extort" theTrump Organization. The network reached a legal settlement with Cohen in April, acknowledging that the original story was false.[95]
AfterThe Washington Post reported in November 2017 allegations that Alabama Senate candidateRoy Moore had made unwanted sexual advances toward teenagers when he was in his thirties, OAN "became a source of both positive coverage and stories that could cast doubt on his accusers."[96] In November 2017, OAN aired a segment citing a false rumor by an anonymous Twitter account thatThe Washington Post had offered $1,000 to Roy Moore's accusers.[97][98][99] OAN described the tweet as a "report" and described the tweeter as a "former Secret Service agent and Navy veteran".[97][98] The Twitter source had a history of tweeting falsehoods and conspiracy theories; the Twitter account had also made repeated and inconsistent lies about its identity, including appropriating the identity of a Navy serviceman who died in 2007.[98] After it was revealed that the story was ahoax, OAN did not retract its report.[97]
During his Senate campaign, Roy Moore cited OAN when he defended himself against the accusations, including an OAN story that alleged his "Accusers Have Ties to Drug Dealers &Washington Post".[100][101][102]
During the night of theAlabama Senate election, OAN announced that Moore had swept the election "by a large margin" when in actuality Moore had lost the race. In its announcement, the network cited "unofficial polling", and the news anchor extended OAN CEO Robert Herring's congratulations to Moore on having run a "fine campaign." OAN's website also published an erroneous article claiming Moore had won "despite attacks from Democrats about unverified allegations."[103] During election night, OAN also reported "a number of people have been caught trying to sneak into voting booths and vote illegally"; however, Alabama Secretary of State's office said it had no credible reports of voter fraud.[104]
In April 2018, while on an al-Assad regime-led tour of the area of theDouma chemical attack, an OAN correspondent claimed there was no evidence that a chemical attack had occurred.[108] The correspondent said, "Not one of the people that I spoke to in that neighborhood said that they had seen anything or heard anything about a chemical attack on that day" and that residents "lovedBashar al-Assad."[108]
In May 2019, OAN published a report claiming that theWhite Helmets had admitted to staging fake chemical weapons attacks intended to put blame on the Assad regime. OAN referred to the humanitarian organization, which is partly funded by the US State Department, as "terrorist-linked".The Daily Beast described this story as a smear that could be traced directly as Russiandisinformation.[78] A CNN report about declassified intelligence regarding Russian propaganda also said the OAN report had spread Russian propaganda and falsehoods, while quoting an intelligence official who stressed that Western targets of Russian propaganda are often "unaware who is essentially seeding these narratives".[109]
In September 2018, Posobiec interviewed a pro-Hitler online poster known as Microchip on OAN without indicating that person's affiliations, according to theSouthern Poverty Law Center. The SPLC said the two men had worked together in spreading disinformation for several years, including the false claims propagated in Pizzagate.[113] In 2020, during theGeorge Floyd protests inBuffalo, New York, Posobiec falsely reported and promoted another unsubstantiated conspiracy theory regardingpipe bombs.[114]
OAN is known for downplaying threats posed to the United States by Russia. According to a former OAN producer, on his first day at OAN he was told, "Yeah, we like Russia here."[29][74] One of OAN's reporters, Kristian Brunovich Rouz, simultaneously works for theRussian propaganda outlet and news agencySputnik, which isstate-owned; when Rouz runs favorable segments on OAN that relate to Russia, OAN does not disclose that he also works for Sputnik.[36][115][116] Rouz compiled a wholly fabricated story that OAN ran in 2017, which alleged that Hillary Clinton's political action committee secretly gave $800,000 to "antifa."[36][117] In May 2020, Rouz created a segment for OAN in which he claimed "mounting evidence of a globalist conspiracy" involving the Clintons,Soros,Bill Gates,Anthony Fauci, and the Chinese government. No evidence exists for any of this.[117]
In September 2019, OAN parent Herring Networks suedMSNBC hostRachel Maddow (as well asComcast, MSNBC andNBCUniversal Media) for $10 million in federal court, after Maddow said the network "literally [is] paid Russian propaganda" on her July 22, 2019 program (when she referred to aDaily Beast article identifying Rouz as working for Sputnik).[118] The court dismissed the suit, finding the claim was not defamation, but that a "reasonable viewer" would recognize it as a reasonable summation of the article published byThe Daily Beast.[119][120] In February 2021, Herring Networks was ordered to pay Maddow and MSNBC $250,000 legal fees in ananti-SLAPP ruling. OAN's appeal of the ruling was denied by a three-judge panel of theNinth Circuit Court of Appeals in August 2021. The panel decided that Maddow's statement was "an obvious exaggeration, cushioned within an undisputed news story", and thus not defamation.[121]
Chanel Rion
In 2019, OAN hiredChanel Rion as a correspondent.[122] Rion previously worked as a political cartoonist, promotedmurder of Seth Rich conspiracy theories, and wrote ananti-feminist children's book; Rion also praised a book by aHolocaust denier.[123][124] In October 2019, she claimed without evidence that former FBI lawyerLisa Page and former FBI Deputy DirectorAndrew McCabe were involved in an affair. OAN later retracted the story.[125]
OAN has run storiesfalsely claiming that George Soros, a Hungarian-born American philanthropist, collaborated withthe Nazis when he was a 14-year-old.[36] The network has also accused Soros of funding migrant caravans to the United States.[36]
During a report fromUkraine with Rudy Giuliani, in December 2019, OAN correspondent Chanel Rion claimed without evidence that Soros had shown up at theKyiv airport with "humanDobermans in little black Mercedes" to find them. The claim was ridiculed in Ukrainian and American media.[127][128][129] Soros was not known to have visited Ukraine since 2016.[128]
In March 2020, during theCOVID-19 pandemic, the OAN chief White House correspondent Chanel Rion promoted a conspiracy theory that the virus originated in a North Carolina lab, citing information from a "citizen investigator and a monitored source amongst a certain set of the DC intelligence community"[131] who was actually a Twitter conspiracy theorist.[132] As she described this individual during a televised report from the White House grounds, an image was displayed of actorKeir Dullea in the film2001: A Space Odyssey. She also asserted thatAnthony Fauci, the nation's leading expert on infectious diseases, had funded the creation of COVID-19.[123][133] Rion later claimed without evidence that other mainstream media outlets were parrotingChinese Communist Party propaganda.[134] During a press conference with Trump, she asked him whether it was "racist" to use the term "Chinese food"; accused "major left-wing news media" of "consistently siding with foreign state propaganda, Islamic radicals and Latin gangs and cartels" as well as "Chinese Communist Party narratives"; and asked the president whether it was "alarming" that media "work right here at the White House with direct access to you and your team?"[123][135][136]
In May 2020, OAN hostLiz Wheeler claimed without evidence that "mainstream media pretended there was a deadly surge in COVID cases" after the2020 Wisconsin Spring election.PolitiFact rated the claim "Pants on Fire", having found that there were no references to a "surge" in their review of state and national articles about the election, and that reports had accurately listed the number of COVID-19 cases potentially related to the election.[137]
In November 2020,YouTube suspended OAN's channel's ability to upload videos for one week and demonetized its channel for violating YouTube's policy against promotingCOVID-19 misinformation, after OAN uploaded a video advertising afake cure for COVID-19.[45] OAN responded that "The video was 'unlisted' on YouTube for review by internal OAN staff only", accused YouTube of aFirst Amendment violation, and stated that the video was republished on the OAN website.[138]
In September 2022, OAN reported on a declaration by a group of scientists and doctors claiming that theCOVID-19 vaccines were causing an "international medical crisis". Thefact-checking website Health Feedback noted that OAN did not acknowledge that the claims made in the declaration had previously been fact-checked and found to be inaccurate, unsupported or misleading.[139]
In June 2020, during protests against racism and police brutality in the wake of themurder of George Floyd, OAN reporterJack Posobiec falsely claimed that there were pipe bombs planted at theKorean War Memorial in Washington D.C., and that "federal assets [were] in pursuit". There were no pipe bombs, nor is there any evidence that any "federal assets" pursued it.[140]
In June 2020, OAN claimed, without evidence, that anelderly protester who had been seriously injured by police "was attempting to capture the radio communications signature of Buffalo police officers" and was linked to theantifa movement.[116][114][130] Referencing OAN's unfounded conspiracy theory, Trump later tweeted that the protester "could be an ANTIFAprovocateur."[114][141][142] OAN's Kristian Rouz provided no evidence for these claims, referring only toThe Conservative Treehouse, an anonymously written right-wing blog.[143][144] That afternoon, Herring Sr. tweeted to Trump, "we won't let you down as your source for credible news!"[116] On June 13,protesters inSan Diego, California gathered outside OAN headquarters,[145] where Herring Sr. challenged the crowd to prove the story was false.[146]
Christina Bobb, an OAN anchor, was present in theWillard Hotel "command center" where top Trump associates worked to preventJoe Biden's election from being certified.[148][149]Rudy Giuliani said in an October 2021 deposition that Bobb had to run stories she developed past the Trump campaign so that they "didn't violate any of our rules or whatever".[150][151]The Washington Post reported in January 2022 that Bobb worked with Giuliani and other Trump campaign officials in December 2020 to executea plan for Republicans in seven states to create fraudulentcertificates of ascertainment to falsely assert Trump had been reelected.[152][153]
OAN saw growth in its audience as a result of its election coverage. It was boosted in particular by Donald Trump, who expressed disapproval ofFox News' reporting on the presidential election and encouraged his supporters to instead watch OAN orNewsmax TV, anotherconservative channel promoting election falsehoods.[154][155][156]
Reuters reported in October 2021 that on the day ofthe attack on the Capitol by Trump supporters, an OAN news director emailed staff: "Please DO NOT say 'Trump Supporters Storm Capitol...' Simply call them demonstrators or protestors...DO NOT CALL IT A RIOT!!!" The next day, Herring emailed news producers: "We want to report all the things Antifa did yesterday. I don't think it was Trump people but lets investigate." The FBI has not found evidence of antifa involvement.[2]
Dominion Voting Systems
Top: Coverage of Dominion Voting Systems on January 1, 2021.Bottom: OAN scrubs all references to Dominion Voting Systems after Dominion filed a defamation lawsuit againstSidney Powell.
OAN was a major promoter of the conspiracy theory thatDominion Voting Systems had manipulated vote totals to ensure the victory of Democratic candidateJoe Biden.[46][157] OAN spent months alleging manipulation by Dominion,[158] advanced claims that Dominion employees had colluded withantifa activists,[159][160] aired a fictitious map allegedly seized by theUS Army from election servers in Germany showing Donald Trump had received 410 electoral votes,[161][162] and hosted interviews with Trump allies claiming that Dominion was part of an internationalcommunist conspiracy.[163] Some of these claims were later amplified by Donald Trump, including a false assertion made on OAN that millions of votes for Trump were switched to votes forJoe Biden (a claim that originated onTheDonald.win, a pro-Trump website);[164][165][166] Trump also tweeted out an OAN segment in whichRon Watkins, afar-right conspiracy theorist and administrator of8chan (the website famous for its close connection to theQAnon conspiracy theory), was falsely characterized as an expert on election issues as he promoted conspiracy theories about Dominion.[167][168]
OAN later removed all references to Dominion andSmartmatic, another company falsely accused of voter fraud, from its website without issuing public retractions after Dominion filed a $1.3 billiondefamation lawsuit againstSidney Powell.[169][170] However, on February 5, 2021, OAN airedAbsolute Proof, a film produced byMy Pillow CEOMike Lindell that contained false claims and conspiracy theories about voter fraud in the election. Before the program, OAN showed a lengthy disclaimer asserting that the claims were Lindell's alone, but that the 2020 election results "remain disputed and questioned by millions of Americans." The disclaimer was seen as an attempt to avoid litigation from Dominion and Smartmatic.[171][172]
On August 10, 2021, Dominion sued OAN for "knowingly and continuously" spreading false election fraud narratives,[173] for a minimum of $1.6 billion.[174]
Russian disinformation
The US intelligence community report with a reference to "... a documentary that aired on a US television network in late January 2020"
On January 25, 2020, OAN aired a film titledThe Ukraine Hoax: Impeachment, Biden Cash, and Mass Murder. In March 2021, theUnited States intelligence community released an analysis which found that proxies of Russian intelligence "made contact with established US media figures and helped produce a documentary that aired on a US television network in late January 2020" as part of a broad effort to promote andlaunder misleading or unsubstantiated narratives about Joe Biden "to US media organizations, US officials, and prominent US individuals, including some close to former President Trump and his administration."[175][176]
Promotion of executions
In June 2021, OAN personality Pearson Sharp falsely stated in an on-air monologue that "the simple facts point to massive and widespread problems with voting integrity" and "there have been numerous indications that foreign governments including China and Pakistan, meddled in our election to install Joe Biden as president," continuing: "What are the consequences for traitors who meddled with our sacred democratic process and tried to steal power by taking away the voices of the American people? What happens to them? Well, in the past, America had a very good solution for dealing with such traitors: Execution...The bottom line is that no one is above the law. And let this be a warning to anyone who thinks they are. The consequences are clear. And those responsible will be brought to justice for their role in undermining America's democracy."
Followers of theQAnon conspiracy theory shared video of the monologue, which buttressed their belief that a "storm" was coming in whichSatan-worshipingpedophiles who oppose Trump would be rounded up andexecuted.[177][178]
Arizona election audit
Trump lost Arizona and its most populous county, Maricopa, in the 2020 election. Arizona Senate Republicans, holding the senate majority and led byKaren Fann, asserted possible fraud and hired private firms to conduct anaudit of Maricopa balloting. OAN broadcast extensive coverage of the audit, which was widely criticized across the political spectrum. Bobb and Rion formed a501(c)(4) social welfare organization to raise funds for the effort, promoting it on the air. The audit ultimately found no proof of fraud and that Biden's margin of victory was actually slightly higher.[179]
Doxing and harassment ofNew York Times journalist
On March 18, 2021, OAN aired a segment which contained the phone number ofNew York Times reporter Rachel Abrams, who they claimed was "fishing for information" from disgruntled OAN employees for a "hit piece" and called on viewers to "stand up to intimidation by the left" by contacting Abrams. OAN also posted a tweet with the number on its Twitter account, which was deleted after more than 6 hours by Twitter for violating its rules on personal and private information.[180][181] On April 18, 2021, Abrams published an article inThe New York Times, which cited interviews with current and former OAN employees stating that the channel had broadcast reports they considered to be "misleading, inaccurate or untrue", and that some employees were hoping the channel would be sued byDominion Voting Systems, which it later was.[55][182] Marty Golingan, one of the employees who was interviewed, was fired by OAN after the article was published.[183]
Reception
In March 2015,University of Southern California media professorMarty Kaplan praised the network for its focus on what he viewed as impartial news reporting, writing inThe Huffington Post, "Ten minutes of OAN tells me eight stories; 10 minutes ofFox orMSNBC tells me one story, to make me mad," while commenting that OAN's opinion segments were "as delusional and incendiary as anything on conservative talk radio or Fox."[184] He has since expressed a different view of the network, tellingColumbia Journalism Review that, where once the talk shows were "sand traps" in a "large field of green", the network "fairly quickly" became "more like the Sahara".[75] Don Kaplan (no relation to Marty) of theNew YorkDaily News echoed similar sentiments to Marty Kaplan's initial view, writing in December 2016 that, "it's by far one of the most fair news outlets around, serving up a daily diet of ad-free, non-ideological, nonstop news—without smirking, snarky anchors or much fanfare" while stating that its opinion segments "skew hard to the right."[185]
In an April 2020Last Week Tonight segment,John Oliver called the channel "a combination of far-right wing talking points and dirt-stupid reporting," criticizing its hosts, methods, ideology, accuracy, promotion of unfounded conspiracy theories, and closeness to the Trump administration.[188][189]
In 2022, theGlobal Disinformation Index described OAN as having a high risk ofdisinformation due to "publishing no information regarding its policies to ensure accuracy (fact-checking, etc.) or attribute authorship, or about its ownership structure, which is a risk-factor forconflicts of interest and/or editorial interference."[190]
Ratings
In June 2019, OAN said it was available in 35 million homes and its audience ranged from 150,000 to as large as 500,000, thoughNielsen Media Research estimated its viewership that year to be about 14,000. The company does not subscribe to Nielsen, citing its high fees, so regular audience estimates are not available.[6]
Litigation
In February 2021, a federal judge awarded $250,000 toMSNBC in an anti-SLAPP counter suit to OAN's $10million lawsuit claiming that they had been defamed byRachel Maddow. The judgment ruled that OAN's initial suit was frivolous and required OAN to pay all legal fees incurred by MSNBC.[191]
In March 2022, OAN sued AT&T and DirecTV for $1 billion after DirecTV announced in January that it would be dropping the network in April,[192][33] alleging that the decision was "part and parcel of a larger, coordinated, extremely well-financed political scheme to take down Herring and unlawfully destroy its ability to operate in the media business".[192] OAN also alleged that AT&T and DirecTV violated a confidentiality provision by telling the press about the agreement expiration, and that AT&T "disparaged OAN in violation of the Affiliation Agreement", pointing toCNN airing "reports and commentary that falsely accused OAN of contributing tothe events of January 6, 2021, and engaging in 'disinformation' campaigns" and John Oliver criticizing OAN onLast Week Tonight.[33] In January 2023, most of OAN's claims were dismissed, but the judge did rule that Herring had "adequately alleged a breach of the confidentiality provision" and "would at a minimum be entitled tonominal damages".[193]
2020 election lawsuits
In December 2020, OAN was included as a defendant in adefamation lawsuit byDominion Voting Systems executive Eric Coomer, alongside other outlets such asNewsmax andThe Gateway Pundit.[194][195] Coomer asserted that the defendants had characterized him as a "traitor" and that as a result he was subjected to "multiple credible death threats".[196][194][197] OAN reached asettlement with Coomer in August 2023.[195]
In August and November 2021, the channel was sued by Dominion Voting Systems andSmartmatic for promoting false claims that the companies had engaged in election fraud during the2020 presidential election.[173][198]
In December 2021, former Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and her daughterWandrea' ArShaye Moss filed a defamation lawsuit against OAN and several of its senior executives, among others. In the complaint, Freeman and Moss alleged that OAN broadcast stories which falsely accused them of conspiring to produce secret batches of illegal ballots and inserting them into the voting machines to help Joe Biden win the 2020 US presidential election. Due to the alleged false accusations, Freeman and Moss said that they "have become the objects of vitriol, threats, and harassment".[199] In April 2022, they reached a settlement agreement with OAN and weeks later the network aired a pre-recorded 30-second segment acknowledging that its allegations were false.[200][201]
In January 2024, court filings from Smartmatic's defamation lawsuit against OAN revealed that OAN president Charles Herring had sent an email with a spreadsheet claimed to contain the passwords of Smartmatic employees to Sidney Powell on January 8, 2021. Smartmatic lawyers said the email exchange showed that OAN executives "may have engaged in criminal activities" because they "appear to have violated state and federal laws regarding data privacy."[202] Herring also solicited additional information from the anonymous tipster who provided the spreadsheet.[203] Another court filing indicated that CEO Robert Herring had also sent a similar spreadsheet to Mike Lindell.[202] A settlement was reached in April 2024.[204]
^Dagnes, Alison (2019). "Negative Objectives: The Right-Wing Media Circle and Everyone else". In Dagnes, Alison (ed.).Super Mad at Everything All the Time. Springer International Publishing. p. 179.doi:10.1007/978-3-030-06131-9_5.ISBN9783030061319.S2CID156032120.
