OANN: Good News

Graham Ledger

The new, upstart One America News Network (OANN) is certainly worth a look -- in my view, an extended look.  One could say, painting with a fine brush, that Fox News Network (FNN) owns the conservative message for TV viewers; it is to television what Rush Limbaugh is to radio.  Fox has become enormously successful because it has enjoyed the distinction of being the only news and opinion TV outlet for conservative voices.  Which is not to say that it is a good or intellectually consistent outlet.  The Marxist ruling class (the Institutional Left) may rail against Fox as an instrument of right-wing extremists.  And from their perspective it is.  From my own it is nothing of the kind.  A generation ago Fox would have been seen as politically centrist, and that's how I see it today. *



I have long believed that Fox needs competition.  While I don't see FNN as complacent, I find no evidence that it has made much improvement in articulating the free-market conservative message.  
There is no incentive so long as it dominates the market.  In the best case Fox would have several credible competitors.  The arrival of OANN may signal a beginning.

The new network can not yet be seen as a serious rival to Fox, but it is a refreshing alternative.  Its programming is not seamless or polished, but I welcome that, and I find myself switching away from Fox to see what's going on with the new guys.   An antidote to the sometimes tiresome O'reilly and Hannity and the always irritating and poorly aging Shepard Smith.

It seems to me that Graham Ledger and Rick Hussion (comment and news, respectively) are the OANN heavyweights.  Lightweights abound.  

Tomi Lahren (whose signature mystifies) falls into that category.  A recent college graduate from South Dakota, she comes across as an air head.  She is not.  She does her homework for interviews and she is deceptively bright.  She thinks of herself as a conservative, but that lies more in the realm of aspiration than reality.  She has done little to shake off the memes of K16 indoctrination, and the question is whether she will -- in time -- overcome it.  In her early twenties, She is pretty in a valley-girl sort of way, but her, on-automatic, rapid-fire speech rate outpaces her thoughts.  During interviews she is good at framing questions but weak in riposte. Because I would argue, she lacks in conservative grounding, critical thinking and temperament. It's hard to imagine her competing with Megyn Kelly, but she has potential.  I'm not quite sure how to classify her show; interview & talk TV, I suppose...

Rick Amato, the other opinion guru, also fancies himself a conservative.  He is sometimes entertaining, often right, but all you need to know about him is that he believes Mitt Romney can save the Republican party.

Besides Rick Hussion, the other news readers (that I know of) are moderately attractive women who are competent but not particularly engaging.

OANN says that it has, thus far, eschewed sponsors that are less than stellar.  Presumably, they are operating from their own reserves until they can gain market penetration sufficient attract first-rate advertisers.  One hopes they will.

The new network is sometimes amateurish, corny, camp.  But it is a refreshing adjunct to FNN, and sometimes (Graham Ledger, pictured) the equal of Fox.  The new network makes a point of making a bright-line distinction between news and opinion, and I think it delivers.  The hard news, is probably OANN's best feature.  If I want comprehensive news coverage in the broadest scope, this is where I turn.


Any challenge to the Marxist control of the American narrative deserves a warm welcome, and its fun to watch an new and promising work in progress.  One hopes it is but a beginning.  This is where the war in the trenches needs, above all, to be fought.

 


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*.   Contrary to the prevailing meme Republicans, conservatives, some independents and others have not moved to the "extreme right".  Though I have never encountered in media the balancing characterization of Democrats moving to the "extreme left", that is precisely what they've done.  In doing so they have highlighted the political contrast.  Reminds me of the Soviets labeling the national (as opposed to world) socialism of Germany and Italy "right wing".