BOSTON: DirecTV plans to drop One America News Network, significantly shrinking the reach of the right-wing TV channel friendly to Donald Trump and widely criticized for spreading misinformation including the former president’s false claim that he won the 2020 election.
The satellite television provider said Saturday that it has informed OAN’s owner, Herring Networks. Inc., that it will no longer carry its two channels when their contract expires. The other, AWA, is a lifestyle channel. The decision is believed to remove OAN from millions of homes.
“We informed Herring Networks that, following a routine internal review, we do not plan to enter into a new contract when our current agreement expires,” a DirecTV spokesman said in an emailed statement.
The spokesman would not say when the contract expires, but Bloomberg News, which first reported development on Friday, said it expires in early April.
San Diego-based Herring Networks did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
Bloomberg said DirecTV is OAN’s largest distributor. On its website, Herring says OAN is carried by Verizon FiOS and several smaller TV providers. It can also be streamed online. Major cable companies including Comcast and Charter do not carry OAN.
AT&T has a 70 percent stake in DirecTV, which has carried OAN since April 2017 after AT&T settled a lawsuit demanding it carry the channels. Herring Networks had claimed AT&T reneged on an agreement to carry OAN on DirecTV, which it acquired in 2015.
OAN became a darling of Trump during his presidency and has continued to report his claim that the 2020 presidential election was rigged against him – a claim directly contradicted by the facts and exhaustive reporting. It has carried Trump live in post-presidency appearances, its reporters declining to challenge his contrafactual claims.
Trump came to OAN’s defense at a rally Saturday night in Arizona, praising the network — “I love One America News,” he said — and threatening to call for a boycott of DirecTV’s parent company, AT&T.
“This is horrible,” Trump said. “This is a great network. These are great people. I watch it all the time and you really get the truth. And they want to cancel them now because of politics — for purely political reasons. It’s a disgrace what’s going on.”
He added, “But I don’t think that people are gonna stand for it” and, noting the company’s founders were in the crowd, said, “Maybe what we should do is not use AT&T.”
Dominion Voting Systems sued OAN and other right-wing broadcasters in August, claiming they damaged the election technology company’s business by trumpeting lies spread by Trump adherents that it was complicit in an election-rigging conspiracy.
DirecTV does not provide a breakdown of its subscribers, but AT&T reported that as of the second quarter of 2021 it had a total of 15.4 million paid premium TV subscribers including DirecTV, AT&T U-verse wireline video and the online service AT&T TV.
The paid TV market has been steadily shrinking as more people abandon it for streaming services.
DirecTV drops Trump-friendly One America News
https://arab.news/ntx26
DirecTV drops Trump-friendly One America News
- The right-wing TV channel has been friendly to Donald Trump and widely criticized for spreading misinformation including the former president’s false claim that he won the 2020 election
Israeli court overturns conviction of officer who assaulted Palestinian journalist, citing ‘Oct. 7 PTSD’
- Judge sentenced Yitzhak Sofer to 300 hours of community service, saying officer “devoted his life to Israel’s security” and conviction was “disproportionate to severity of his actions”
- Footage shows Sofer throwing photojournalist Mustafa Alkharouf to the ground, and repeatedly beating and kicking him while he covered Palestinian gatherings near Al-Aqsa Mosque
LONDON: An Israeli court overturned the conviction of a border police officer who assaulted a Palestinian journalist, ruling his actions were influenced by post-traumatic stress disorder from serving during the Oct. 7 2023 attacks.
On Tuesday, the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court sentenced officer Yitzhak Sofer to 300 hours of community service for assaulting Anadolu Agency photojournalist Mustafa Alkharouf in occupied East Jerusalem in December 2023.
Footage shows Sofer and other officers drawing weapons, throwing Alkharouf to the ground, and repeatedly beating and kicking him while he covered Palestinian gatherings near Al-Aqsa Mosque amid heavy restrictions.
Alkharouf was hospitalized with facial and body injuries. His cameraman, Faiz Abu Ramila, was also attacked.
Anadolu photojournalist Mustafa Alkharouf violently attacked by Israeli army in occupied East Jerusalem while covering Palestinian prayers near Al-Aqsa Mosque
— Anadolu English (@anadoluagency) December 15, 2023
Incident highlights ongoing restrictions on Friday prayers and press freedom in region https://t.co/exT6XqjEaA pic.twitter.com/pqugK9HnOt
Sofer had been convicted in September 2024 of assault causing bodily harm (acquitted of threats) and initially faced six months’ community service, as recommended by Mahash, the Justice Ministry’s police misconduct unit.
Judge Amir Shaked accepted the defense request to cancel the conviction, replacing it with community service.
He cited Sofer’s PTSD from responding to the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack, noting the officer had “no prior criminal record” and had “devoted his life to Israel’s security.”
“The court cannot ignore this when considering whether the defendant’s conviction should stand,” he said, adding that while the incident is “serious and does cross the criminal threshold,” the conviction in place could cause Sofer harm “disproportionate to the severity of his actions.”
The ruling comes amid surging attacks on journalists in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza since Israel’s war on Gaza began.
The Committee to Protect Journalists reported Israel responsible for two-thirds of the 129 media workers killed worldwide in 2025, the deadliest year on record, citing a “persistent culture of impunity” and lack of transparent probes.
Reporters Without Borders called the Israeli army the “worst enemy of journalists” in its 2025 report, with nearly half of global reporter deaths in Gaza.
Foreign journalists face raids, arrests and intimidation. In late January 2026, Israel’s Supreme Court granted a delay on ruling a ban on foreign media access to Gaza.
