The conservative-leaning channel serves up 20 hours of fast-paced live news, along with two brashly opinionated talk shows
In a television studio tucked into a Bay Ho business park, Graham Ledger looks into a camera and opens with his signature line: “Stand by. The doors to the newsroom are locked and the PC police are not getting in.”
He then spends the next hour eviscerating liberal politics.
The Democratic presidential hopefuls are “buffoons” and “socialists,” and all this talk of climate change reform is actually “a massive plan to redistribute wealth.”
In the same episode he slams California’s sex education curriculum as “sexual indoctrination” from “fascist left radical ideology” and points to “this gender nonsense going on.” Later, he congratulates the United States for being “the least racist nation.”
“If we were racist then why do all the Central Americans want in?” he asked.
His show, The Daily Ledger, is the flagship program on One America News Network, a scrappy right-leaning channel that is jockeying for a larger share of the cable news pie from its headquarters in San Diego.
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Ledger’s incendiary, bombastic commentary is a familiar format to cable news junkies of all political stripes, although One America strives to set itself apart from its competition by what it broadcasts the rest of the day: a “news wheel” of national and international headlines read by a no-fluff anchor.
The network, called OAN or OANN for short, has a fan in President Donald Trump, who has praised the channel to his 62 million followers on Twitter, particularly as his cozy relationship with Fox News begins to show fractures.
“Watching Fake News CNN is better than watching Shepard Smith, the lowest rated show on @FoxNews,” the president tweeted last month. “Actually, whenever possible, I turn to @OANN!”
One America News is blatantly pro-Trump.
In the regular news cycle, stories are often framed around his point of view or highlight his reaction to events of the day. When critics attack, OAN defends.
“One America News has a lot of information to release on Ukraine that will leave President Trump very happy,” the network’s founder and CEO Robert Herring Sr. teased in a tweet earlier this week amid the latest political firestorm.
Trump congratulated OAN on its ratings in May, and Herring Sr. tweeted back: “Our ratings are going up because we treat you like you are the President of the United States. Your ratings are going up because you are doing a great job. Let’s keep it up!”
When the president visited San Diego last week, One America laid out the welcome mat — and hoped Trump was paying attention. “President Trump, @OANN ran a 30 minute special report detailing the accomplishments you have made,” Herring Sr. tweeted. “We could have filled another 30 minutes, but one thing you have not done is send out a tweet of your thoughts.”
Russia controversy
One America’s brand is wrapped in patriotism.
Its name was inspired by the Latin phrase found on the official seal of the United States, “E pluribus unum,” or “Out of many, one.” Its logo incorporates the colors of the American flag and a bald eagle.
But lately, One America has had to defend its American-ness.
Media critics have long pointed to a pro-Russia narrative that seems to run through One America’s news coverage.
Herring Sr.’s separate online TV streaming service, KlowdTV, includes among its channels RT — formerly called Russia Today. The Russian state-owned news outlet, which is offered to KlowdTV at no cost, “provides an alternative perspective on major global events, and acquaints the audience with a Russian viewpoint,” according to its description.
RT, along with the Russian government-affiliated news network Sputnik, has been linked by U.S. intelligence to Russia’s efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election.
Earlier this year, The Daily Beast outed an OAN employee as a freelance writer for Sputnik and pointed to an apparent Kremlin-esque tinge in some of his on-air reporting for OAN.
The Daily Beast story made its way to Rachel Maddow, MSNBC’s left-leaning star. She slammed OAN in a July broadcast, proclaiming that “the most obsequiously pro-Trump right wing news outlet in America really literally is paid Russian propaganda.”
The Herring family responded this month with a defamation lawsuit in San Diego federal court against Maddow and the station’s parent company Comcast.
According to the lawsuit, the Ukranian-born employee’s job is to re-write wire stories for broadcast and has nothing to do with his freelance work for Sputnik.
“Maddow’s statement is utterly and completely false,” the lawsuit states. “OAN is wholly owned and financed by the Herrings, an American family. OAN has never been paid or received a penny from Russia or the Russian government.”
The lawsuit further claims Maddow’s statement was reaction to an email that the founder’s son, OAN President Charles Herring, sent to a Comcast executive one week earlier. The letter was to convince the broadcast behemoth to carry OAN, while also suggesting that the reason Comcast hasn’t accepted the offer was because OAN is a political counterweight to MSNBC.
The Herrings are asking for damages to exceed $10 million.
Their attorney, Skip Miller, wants to set straight the family’s allegiance: “They are as American as apple pie.”
Comcast did not return emails seeking comment on the lawsuit.
An ‘expensive operation’
Public presidential approval has been priceless advertising for the channel — even if much of Trump’s audience can’t actually access One America through their home cable carriers.
The channel is available in some 35 million households, according to Herring. That’s less than a third of the roughly 119 million TV households in the U.S., as estimated by ratings giant Nielsen.
In San Diego, OAN is broadcast on AT&T’s U-verse and DirecTV. Major carriers in other markets include CenturyLink, Verizon’s Fios TV and Frontier Communications. The network’s business model is a traditional mix of national advertising sales and long-term affiliate agreements — basically cable providers paying the channel for its feed.
OAN is also available via subscription on Roku, Facebook and KlowdTV.
Besides Russian television, viewers on KlowdTV can also get familiar entertainment channels — such as Pop, Court TV, QVC and the Game Show Network — alongside far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ InfoWars, Euronews, and the conservative Newsmax and Blaze TV.
“The news centric offering highlights the belief that a well-informed country is healthy for our democracy,” said Charles Herring, who answered the Union-Tribune’s questions via email and during a tour of the Morena Boulevard studios.
OAN is not rated by Nielsen, although it pays for media analytics from Comscore using set-top box data from one of OAN’s major cable carriers. The Herrings declined to release specific figures, but said in March that OAN ranked fourth-highest among cable channels in the News/Business/Info category. Viewership has grown by about 25 percent in the last year, Herring added.
Viewer demographics skew slightly male, with an average age in the low 60s, he said. “Sixty percent of our viewers are on the East Coast,” Herring said. “Also Texas, Illinois and California are good for us.”
Herring declined to release financial earnings but said the family-owned company is profitable, debt free and operates on an annual budget in the tens of millions of dollars.
“National news is a very expensive operation,” he said.
Circuit board fortune
The family — Herring Sr. and sons Charles and Bobby — got into the TV business in 2004 with the launch of WealthTV, a lifestyle and entertainment channel celebrating everything from private jets and private islands to mega mansions and mega yachts.
Herring Sr. had built his own fortune with printed circuit boards.
In 1988, he sold his company, Industrial Circuits, to a Japanese firm for $60 million, then jumped back into the industry a year later with Herco Technology, he told the Los Angeles Times in 1989. He and his sons sold that venture and another, Perception Laminates, in 2000 for $122 million in stock. The proceeds funded WealthTV.
WealthTV (later rebranded as AWE for A Wealth of Entertainment) eventually added in three daily news segments. In 2008, Ledger — a two-time Emmy award winner who had spent 20 years anchoring local news in Southern California, including at San Diego’s KFMB-TV — was brought in to anchor the fast-paced, headline driven newscasts.
The format resonated with WealthTV’s mature audience. At the same time, other cable news outlets were moving away from the traditional news wheel in favor of more pundits and commentary.
“The fact we’re even in existence today is a minor miracle and, I think, the tenacity of our owner Robert Herring,” Ledger said in an interview.
“When he came to me one day and said, ‘Hey, want to start a news network?’ I looked at him deadpan and said, ‘No, you don’t,’” Ledger recalled. “I know — with all the experience I have in television news — what it takes.”
One America News Network premiered on July 4, 2013.
Conservative lens
“Hard news, fast paced, no fluff, no opinion.” That is how Charles Herring frequently describes One America’s news operation.
“The political talk shows lean to the right, no doubt about it,” Herring said. The two he’s referring to are The Daily Ledger and Tipping Point with Liz Wheeler.
But he insists the 20 hours a day of live headline news are just the facts. The goal is to present the news of the day, then move on.
Many of the stories that appear on OAN are bare bones, straight news — particularly the crime, business and international headlines sourced from wire services. Each item typically runs under a minute.
But many of the political stories, especially packages reported by One America staff, are delivered through a conservative lens. OAN has about 15 reporters working in bureaus in Washington and New York.
“The channel tends to have traditional values,” Herring said, when asked about the lean to the right.
For instance, a block of political news started with highlighting Trump’s support of his former campaign manager and one-time OAN commentator Corey Lewandowski to run for Senate, followed by less-than-laudatory stories involving Bernie Sanders and other Trump challengers.
Interspersed through the daily newscasts is a steadily growing “debt clock” that purports to show the cost of illegal immigration to U.S. taxpayers. The figure has surpassed $200 billion this year.
Commercials range from advertising life insurance to all-inclusive resorts but also promote causes popular with a conservative audience. For instance, Judicial Watch asks viewers to “help stop illegal immigration now,” and Noble Alternative Investments asks viewers to invest in silver and honor the president at the same time with a Trump 2020 “Freedom Coin.”
The stories that aren’t aired also factor into the network’s tone.
Newsroom employees have told The Washington Post and other media organizations that Herring Sr. often directed the newsroom to avoid stories on certain topics or to rely on questionable sources for stories.
Charles Herring disputed the notion that his family has a heavy hand on news content.
“My view doesn’t reflect, doesn’t dictate what we do,” he said.
Herring said guiding the daily coverage is a group exercise. “There are a lot of debates. A lot starts with questions, discussing what’s the truth.”
He acknowledged that the channel hasn’t always succeeded.
“Our management and staff are dedicated to providing a credible and accurate source of national and international news to our viewers,” he said. “Like any 24/7/365 news room, we’ve had our share of mistakes, but we are working hard to fulfill our mission and keep our gaffes to a minimum and correct them as soon as they are brought to our attention.”
Ledger, who left the anchor desk shortly after the network launched so he could freely express his views on The Daily Ledger, acknowledged “there’s no such thing as pure objectivity.” But he insisted that One America’s newscast tells it straight.
“If some of the other networks are used as a yardstick, I’m sure we look like a right-wing news channel because others are so far left,” said Ledger.
Herring described the newsroom staff as having a mix of backgrounds and stressed that a certain political affiliation is not a qualification to work there.
“We have everything here,” he said, pointing out that the channel is headquartered in Southern California, after all.
The channel is an attractive first job for many college graduates in the area looking to get experience. OAN provides a chance for national exposure and the potential to rise quickly in the organization.
One former employee has brought Ledger, Herring Sr. and the network to court.
Jonathan Harris, who is African-American, claims Ledger berated him “on the basis of his political perspectives and racial identity,” according to the lawsuit. Harris also accuses Ledger and Herring Sr. of making blatant racist comments. Harris, who worked as a producer on Ledger’s show, said the channel’s leadership retaliated against him after he complained, finding an excuse to fire him.
Ledger brushed off general accusations that he is racist, pointing out that his daughter is an ethnic minority.
“It’s an unfortunate situation, a former employee with an ideological ax to grind,” Ledger told the Union-Tribune of the lawsuit. “I’m confident it will be resolved in a very favorable manner.” The network’s attorney generally denied the claims in a court filing.
The case is headed for trial in San Diego Superior Court.
Journalism critiqued
Non-conservative media has been largely critical of One America, but Charles Herring likes to point out an exception.
In 2015, Marty Kaplan — the Norman Lear Chair in Entertainment, Media and Society at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism — gave One America a mostly glowing review in the Jewish Journal, calling it his “new favorite TV news network.”
Sentimental for the old days of CNN, he praised OAN for a “non-ideological, non-snarky, non-infuriating, non-boring, nonstop rundown of news I needed to know.”
Contacted recently by the Union-Tribune to expand on his comments, Kaplan wrote in an email that he has stopped watching.
“Some time after I wrote that piece, it struck me that the kind of content that drew me to OAN (i.e., journalism) was dwindling, and the kind that the signature shows on Fox News provide (i.e., outrage) was predominating,” Kaplan said.
Dean Nelson, a media analyst and the director of the journalism program at Point Loma Nazerene University, calls it advocacy journalism. He advises his students looking to intern or work for One America that they will get valid experience there as long as they recognize what they are getting into.
The same advice goes to news consumers, he said.
“Most of the audience surveys I read make it really clear that if you’re getting the majority of your information from only one news source, you are largely misinformed,” Nelson said, adding that he would apply the notion to all media, even the most mainstream.
“If your one news source is One America, you are severely misinformed,” he continued. “If you’re watching One America because you want to have your views validated, then do that for that reason.”
Staff writer Celina Tebor contributed to this report.
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