OANN Revisited (and Often)

* (rev. 2/28/18)

About two years ago I wrote a short essay about One America News Network.  It was generally complimentary, and I welcomed it as a much-needed (though small in the cable world) competitor to an increasingly milqutoast Fox News.  In my view, OAN has improved on all fronts, while FNN has made marginal gains.  Of course a lot has happened since my earlier comments.


Opinion Shows

Graham Ledger

Liz Wheeler

At Fox O'Reilly and Kelly are gone and, according to Hannity, serious efforts have been made to attack him and others by intimidating the network's sponsors.  In a stroke of unbelievably bad marketing, management made the decision to replace its long-time cable leader, O'Reilly, and then Megyn Kelly, whose ratings were solid, with The Five -- a show that, in my opinion (apologies to President Trump), has no place in prime time.  The ratings, especially vis-a-vis CNN, quickly affirmed the point.  After a time of key demographics suffering, The Five was pushed to an earlier time and replaced by Tucker Carlson, a capable, sometimes personable but spotty performer.  In any case FNN's ratings have improved, even if its time-worn format has not.  Hannity has moved to nine PM prime time, effectively ahead of the field in the unfolding corruption at Justice investigation.  Laura Ingraham has taken over the ten o'clock slot (now followed by Shannon Bream at 11 P.M.), which I suppose is a fairly solid lineup, when one is not watching OAN or Lou Dobbs on FBN.
At OAN there have been changes as well.  Tomi Lahren, a popular and successful opinion host (following Graham Ledger's show) left to join Glen Beck at the Blaze; she apparently did well there until she took a public stance in favor of legal abortion that caused Beck to send her packing.  I suspect she may end up as a host at Fox, where she's now a contributor.  Her place at OAN was taken by Liz Wheeler, whose style of rapid speech is similar to Lahren's.  Like her predecessor, Wheeler is young, pretty, bright and conservative,  though not so much a Valley Girl.  She is now head-to-head against Hannity. The transition was nearly seamless.  One formatting element I'm not fond of is the abrupt cutaway at the end of guest appearances in which guests are not given time to acknowledge the thanks of the host.  "Thanks, Harry Houdini, for your expert commentary."  BAM, gone.  As I recall this was begun by Lahren and left in place by Wheeler.  The custom saves time, to be sure, but it is ungracious, bordering on rudeness.  By refreshing contrast, the form is not observed on Graham Ledger's show.

Patrick Hussion

Straight News
The prime time anchor of OAN news is Patrick Hussion, and he delivers well.  During the balance of the day other news readers -- mostly attractive, wholesome and not flashy young women -- cover events, domestic and international, that are rarely, if ever, touched on by other networks.  The time devoted to news without commentary on OAN allows broad coverage of a wide range of topics.  Presumably there is some editorial bias in the selection of news items, but it pales in comparison with what is selectively not covered elsewhere.

Documentaries
Since my last posting, a promising new element has been added to the mix.  Under the title, OAN Investigates, They have produced some excellent documentaries of a kind that Fox has neither the flexibility nor the courage (1) to emulate.  Curiously, neither on their website nor on-air are they vigorously promoted, as I think they deserve to be.
The first I watched was a straightforward, no-holds-barred criticism of militant Islam.  The next was a contrarian, and I think largely correct, presentation of the "civil war" in Syria that questioned the legacy meme that paints Bashar al Assad as the sole malefactor in the murder of his own people.  It presented a view I have held for several years that the early civil unrest in Syria was quickly exploited by Islamic proxies from all over the Muslim world to de-stabilize the country and reveals the staged video footage following the chemical attacks almost universally attributed to Assad. (2)
Finally, OAN did a two part presentation of the latest work of James O'Keefe and Project Veritas' expose of the New York Times.  The network may have produced others that I missed, since I don't watch that much TV.  In any case, OAN has become my go-to network, and I watch Fox less and less.

Conservative TV
It seems to me that among conservatives there is a far too little effort given to increasing their presence in television.  While they own talk radio and are reasonably well represented -- though not seriously -- in print and among major blogs, their committment  toward competing in network TV is not impressive.  With the exceptions of FNN, FBN, OAN and the uninspiring Newsmax, no credible challenge is being made to ABC, CBS and the NBC cabal.  What the future may hold for subscription TV, The Blaze and Mark Levin's CRTV in the light of reported shifts from broadcast TV to streaming, remains to be seen.

Summary
Overturning the Marxist domination of legacy news media ought to be among the first priorities of conservatives, but it does not appear to be.  OAN is exceptional as a privately held corporation (owned by Herring Networks, Inc., Charles Herring, president/CEO) that has risen to the challenge. OAN began broadcasting without commercial support, but is now slowly but regularly gaining commercial sponsorship.  To my knowledge it is still not available on Comcast. (3)
God bless Mr. Herring, and may he be the first of many men of principle successfully to challenge corrupt legacy media, which has transitioned over the course of many years from America's Fourth Estate to its Fifth Column. (4)

* As events have unfolded following publication of this blog, I have found reasons to elevate my opinion about FNN.  Tucker Carlson, though (like Hannity), is not skillful in debate and is often not in command when guests argue among themselves, regularly schedules interviews that are timely and interesting.  The weekly appearance of Mark Steyn is a plus. 
Hannity remains on the leading edge with his guest-reporters on matters of corruption and abuse at DOJ (et. al.).  Laura Ingraham's show is strong, and Shannon Bream's "extra hour" show has not been disappointing.
Finally, Fox -- like OAN -- has begun the regular production of investigative programming on weekends.  Unlike OAN the presentations of FOX are timid and dated (eg., Clinton/Lewinsky), so far eschewing edginess and risk.

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1.  Fox management maintains an un-Trump-like penchant for political correctness, and too often yields, via hosts and anchors, to the temptations of virtue signaling.  OAN airs documentaries that I suspect no one outside subscription TV would dare to touch.
2.  Cable subscribers whose providers, for whatever reasons, have not picked up OAN, are likely not to know the network's format.  Essentially, with the exception on two hours of opinion in prime time, it is an all-news production supplemented by  evocative documentaries.  As a result one will encounter raw news items from all over the world that are not broadcast on other networks.  For those interested I recommend contacting your provider -- preferably by hand-written letter -- asking them to carry OAN.
3.  I encourage subscribers not carrying OAN to write and call, demanding a change.  Otherwise, they may never know what they're missing.
4.  Legacy media's dominance in key demographics (read, young) can only reinforce K12 and university indoctrination, which by itself may have moved too far to overcome.  At stake is reclaiming the American narrative, the American Project itself.