MRC's Lord Defends OAN From Latest Platform Loss -- But Censors The Channel's Lies
Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center normally vociferously defends its fellow right-wing media outlets against any and allc riticism from non-right-wing quarters, it has mostly tepid about defending One America News. It didn't have much to say when DirecTV dropped OAN from its TV offerings beyond a couple posts and a column by Jeffrey Lord -- all of which ignored the fact that OAN has a notorious history of airing false and misleadoing claims, and that it's currently being sued by election-tech firms Dominion and Smartmatic for helping Donald Trumo's Big Lie by falsely accusing them of engaging in election fraud. When Verizon -- OAN's last remaining distributor -- decided to drop OAN, Lord returned with a July 23 column ranting that Verizon was "leftist" and "woke" for engaging in a business decision and somehow blaming it on the company encouraging diversity in its workforce:

Of course.

Verizon, now completely in the woke tank, has moved to silence the conservative One America News Network (OAN). Here’s a sample headline from CNET:

Verizon Becomes Last Big TV Provider to Drop Right-Wing Channel One America News

OAN was criticized for spouting misinformation about COVID and the 2020 election. But Verizon says it's dropping OAN for “economics.”

"Verizon says it's dropping OAN for ‘economics.’”

Right. If you believe that I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you. This is, after all, the self-same Verizon that was headlined in The Blaze as follows not quite a year ago:

Verizon pushes leftist, anti-American agenda in social justice training for employees: Report

Breitbart has exactly captured what this is really all about.

[...]

Make no mistake. This shutdown of One America News by Verizon is part and parcel of the American Left’s determination to use Big Tech to shut down not just conservative media but conservatives in general - and there is nothing new about it. ( AT&T’s Direct TV has also dropped OAN.)

That passing reference to "misinformation" at OAN is Lord's only reference to the elephant in the room. He went on to rant about "CNN pushing the Trump-Russia collusion hoax," which wasn't a hoax at all, and did not entail pushing the kind of lies OAN spread about Dominion and Smartmatic. He apparently doesn't believe that OAN should face any real-life consequences for spreading lies.