President Trump is looking at purchasing the One America News Network channel and turning it into his own propaganda outlet according to a report:
Allies of President Trump are pursuing an effort to acquire right-leaning news channel One America News Network, according to people familiar with the matter, in a bid to shake up a conservative media market that has been dominated by Fox News.
The investment firm Hicks Equity Partners is looking to acquire the channel and is pitching other wealthy GOP donors to arrange a bid of roughly $250 million for the channel’s parent company, the people said. The firm is owned by the family of Thomas Hicks Jr., co-chairman of the Republican National Committee and a close friend of Donald Trump Jr.The efforts come as Mr. Trump has periodically rebuked Fox News for being too critical—despite its opinion-show hosts’ general support of his administration—and has praised One America News Network. The channel’s opinion programming is known among its cable-news peers for its praise of Donald Trump and its advocacy for conservative causes.
“Over the last 25 years, we have been active media investors. Any interest in OANN is from a purely business standpoint,” said Rick Newman, a partner at Hicks Equity Partners who is leading the deal with family patriarch and Trump donor Thomas Hicks.
One America News Network President Charles Herring said in an email that the network has become “a reliable news source for a national audience,” adding that the company has seen interest from potential suitors from time to time. “With the 2020 political season in full swing, expressed interest is on the rise,” he wrote. “Yet our family didn’t build our operations to sell it.”
One America News is owned by San Diego-based Herring Networks Inc., a TV-programming company that was launched in 2004 by Mr. Herring’s father, Robert Herring Sr., founder of a circuit-board firm. He launched the news channel in 2013. (source)
Something about any “democracy” that is seldom remembered is that the “freedom of the press” is only as free as those who control the presses.
It does not matter what one thinks about Trump, as the same criticism would be meritworthy for a Democrat president.
It is an extremely dangerous proposition to have a president or major politician control a serious news outlet while he is in office because he inevitably will use it to make propaganda for himself.
This is not to say that things such as this do not happen all of the time. It is known that very wealthy people are friends with each other and support each other, including those in media and many times almost directly. However, there comes a point when a sitting president attempts to control directly a news outlet.
This is an issue of principle that is practical and a threat to any country at all.
This is also a chance for me to discuss briefly with you all something very special, and that is how Shoebat.com operates- and just that.
Something that we can say is that this website is truly an “independent” site in that while it reflects the views of those who write on it (which is mostly Ted, Walid, and I), our function as a small media journal online documenting trends of all types and how they integrate into an affect the situation of the world today makes us a rarity.
People have asked about our funding, and the answer is simple, as we receive voluntary contributions from readers such as yourself, and we operate from our own investments that are not connected to any major funders.
This is the reason why we are able to criticize parties on all ends of the political spectrum and to take the in-depth research that we do, because we are one of the very few places that is fully self-sustaining and does not take finances from “activists” or other individuals who too often as we have shown have many highly-questionable ties to very evil things.
Some of our views you may agree with. Some you may disagree with. Some you may be indifferent to. All of these things are fine because people have different views, and while there is such a thing as absolute truth, there are also different expressions of various views and so give a natural, healthy diversity to expressing and exploring the facts of the world in which we live.
What makes Shoebat.com special is that we are ourselves. Regardless of what anybody things, one cannot say that we are not ourselves in the total sense of what it means to be human.
This is what concern me as I look at the news media today and the consolidation of what are already known to be veritably organs of Bernaysian propaganda into and outright dictatorial type ownership- remember that this transcends political parties and is an issue of principle -and people are OK arguing in the contexts of pre-set boundaries without any alternative venues to express themselves.
For those who opine about the merits of “free speech”, this is how “free speech” dies away and how intellectual persecution happens. I do not say this in relation to our work here per se, but in relation to the principle that with ever few voices, what is already a small and limited number of options presented as intellectually acceptable in contemporary discourse and little to no drive, ability, or means to present an alternative venue, the public voices that exist are being silenced to the mantra of obedience, regardless of party, to a philosophy of power in the hands of a few to dominate all with those under the yoke of the dominated silenced by design and prevented from giving their perspective.
I remember the days before the Internet and those after. Certainly the Internet has given voice to many who would not have had one before, but there is also a danger with this, for if people are not careful, the very tools used to make many people freer than before will result in them enslaving themselves in way that could only have been dreamed of before it came around.