Original source:<p><a href="https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-oneamerica-att/" rel="nofollow">https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-onea...</a>
This seems bogus. The quote claiming that AT&T specifically did this to push rightist propaganda is hearsay and their "contribution" was a simple deal to allow OAN on DirecTV.<p>By that logic, AT&T is responsible for everything bad that comes out of any of their channels on DirecTV. They're a platform and they have a duty to their shareholders to maximize revenue by platforming content creators as long as those content creators don't break the law. This is just wanton cancel culture.
Lol so AT&T let’s them broadcast and thought it would bring in revenue? And an exec from AT&T started the station?<p>That’s really most of this. So what? Isn’t that the point of commerce?
Facebook: Hey, did you know that anger creates more engagement?! I'm so brilliantly evil!<p>AT&T: Oh please. Wait until you read my book "Destroying Democracy for Profit".
Now when people get mad about one AT&T own property, they can consume the other AT&T owned property to feel agreed with.<p>This is like turbotax selling tax software while lobbying against simpler tax setups. Or Facebook boasting about being a townhall while optimizing for being a barbaric colosseum.<p>Business as usual for unfettered capitalism!
The title says "Reuters Special Report", but it really means "Launch of Pressure Campaign against AT&T to Cancel Bad-guy News Channel".<p>OAN is also a competitor to Reuters (origin of the hit piece) and Mediate (booster of hit piece in the article). Whatever you think about OAN, and even leaving the ideological differences aside, there's something so perfect about using your own news channel to bash your competitor as a "self-styled news channel" and "far-right" that needs to be taken off the air.<p>A alternate-universe mirror image of this article basically writes itself, delineating how the US government funds "far-left" NPR, or how various foundations and venture capitalists helped build whatever other news sites that have reported falsehoods or incited violence, and that they all need to be defunded.