SAN DIEGO, California: A conservative television network sued Rachel Maddow for more than $10 million on Monday for calling it “paid Russian propaganda.”
One America News filed the federal defamation suit in San Diego.
The small, family-owned network based in San Diego is challenging Fox News for conservative cable and satellite TV viewers and has received favorable tweets from President Donald Trump.
The lawsuit contends that Maddow’s comment on her July 22 MSNBC show were retaliation after OAN President Charles Herring accused cable television giant Comcast of censorship. The suit contends that Comcast refused to carry the channel because it “counters the liberal politics of Comcast’s own news channel, MSNBC.”
A week after Herring sent an email to a Comcast executive, Maddow opened her MSNBC show by referring to a report in the Daily Beast that said an OAN employee also worked for Sputnik News, which is linked to the Russian government.
“In this case, the most obsequiously pro-Trump right-wing news outlet in America really literally is paid Russian propaganda,” Maddow said on “The Rachel Maddow Show.”
“Their on-air US politics reporter is paid by the Russian government to produce propaganda for that government,” Maddow said.
In the lawsuit, OAN said Kristian Rouz was a freelancer for Sputnik News, not a staff employee, and his work there had nothing to do with his work for OAN.
The lawsuit includes a statement from Rouz that said he wrote some 1,300 articles over the past 4 ½ years for Sputnik but “I have never written propaganda, disinformation, or unverified information.”
“One America is wholly owned, operated and financed by the Herring family in San Diego. They are as American as apple pie. They are not paid by Russia and have nothing to do with the Russian government,” Skip Miller, an attorney representing OAN, said in a statement. “This is a false and malicious libel, and they’re going to answer for it in a court of law.”
The suit names Maddow, Comcast, MSNBC and NBCUniversal Media.
A message seeking comment from an MSNBC spokeswoman was not immediately returned.
However, the lawsuit included an Aug. 6 letter from Amy Wolf, an attorney for NBCUniversal News Group, to OAN’s attorney.
It said OAN “publishes content collected or created by a journalist who is also paid by the Russian government for writing over a thousand articles. Ms. Maddow’s recounting of this arrangement is substantially true and therefore not actionable.”
One America News sues Rachel Maddow for $10 million
One America News sues Rachel Maddow for $10 million
- The lawsuit contends that Maddow’s comment on her July 22 MSNBC show were retaliation after OAN President Charles Herring accused cable television giant Comcast of censorship
Israel arrests 2 Turkish CNN journalists over live broadcast outside IDF HQ
- Police said reporter Emrah Cakmak and cameraman Halil Kahraman were detained on suspicion of filming a sensitive security facility
- Since the Gaza war began, restrictions have expanded significantly, including tighter limits on filming soldiers on duty and sensitive or strategic sites
LONDON: Israeli police have arrested two Turkish CNN journalists who were broadcasting live outside the Israel Defense Forces’ headquarters in Tel Aviv.
Police said the pair were detained on suspicion of filming a sensitive security facility, according to the Israel Police Spokesperson’s Unit.
Reporter Emrah Cakmak and cameraman Halil Kahraman, from the network’s Turkish-language channel, had been reporting near the IDF’s Kirya military headquarters on Tuesday after Iran launched another missile barrage at Tel Aviv and other parts of central Israel.
During the live broadcast, two men believed to be soldiers approached the crew and seized the reporter’s phone, according to initial reports and a video circulating online that could not be independently verified.
Police said officers were dispatched after receiving reports of two people carrying cameras and allegedly broadcasting in real time for a foreign outlet.
עיתונאים של CNN טורקיה נעצרו לאחר שצילמו את בסיס הקרייה@NoamIhmels pic.twitter.com/t8a5P9yXfw
— גלצ (@GLZRadio) March 3, 2026
Israel’s long-standing military censorship system, overseen by the IDF Military Censor, has long barred journalists and civilians from publishing material deemed harmful to national security.
Since the Gaza war began, restrictions have expanded significantly, including tighter limits on filming soldiers on duty and sensitive or strategic sites.
After a series of similar incidents involving foreign media — most of them Palestinian citizens of Israel working for Arab-language and international media, along with foreign journalists — during the 12-Day War, Israeli police halted live international broadcasts from missile impact sites, citing concerns that exact locations were being revealed.
The Government Press Office later imposed a blanket ban on live coverage from crash and impact areas.
Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir subsequently ordered that all foreign journalists obtain prior written approval from the military censor before broadcasting — live or recorded — from combat zones or missile strike locations.
Police said that when officers asked the CNN Turk crew to identify themselves, they presented expired press cards and were taken in for questioning.
Burhanettin Duran, head of Turkiye’s Directorate of Communications, condemned the arrests as an attack on the press and said Ankara is working to secure the journalists’ release.
