Rachel Maddow, NBC, Comcast, and MSNBC: Sued by OAN for $10 Million Part of Libel Claim

“Skip Miller's” Law firm takes lead on the OAN suit

OAN (“One America News Network”) sues Maddow for $10M.

This story is here from Huff Post and here from Salon with this headline:

Pro-Trump cable news outlet sues Rachel Maddow for $10M for calling it “paid Russian propaganda”

Maddow took aim at OAN’s Kristian Rouz, who has also been a contributor to the Russian news agency Sputnik News.

(Note: Sputnik News is operated by “Rossiya Segodnya” (English: “Russia Today”). That is a major news agency owned and operated by the Russian government that was created by an Executive Order of the President of Russia on December 9, 2013 – yes, then that Russian president was Vladimir Putin – oops…)

The lawsuit: It 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.”

The suit names Maddow, Comcast, MSNBC and NBC Universal Media.

Skip Miller, an attorney representing OAN, said in a statement: “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. This is a false and malicious libel, and they’re going to answer for it in a court of law.”

A week after Herring sent an email to a Comcast executive, Maddow opened her July 22 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, saying in part: “In this case, the most obsequiously pro-Trump right-wing news outlet in America really literally is paid Russian propaganda. Their on-air U.S. politics reporter is paid by the Russian government to produce propaganda for that government.”

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.”

A message seeking comment from an MSNBC spokeswoman was not immediately returned. 

However, the lawsuit included an August 6 letter from Amy Wolf, an attorney for NBC Universal News Group, to OAN’s attorney saying in part: [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.”

My 2 cents: The right wing media (FOX and OAN) are both staunch Trump sycophants – quite disgusting and not worthy to follow with very rare exceptions of a few level-headed commentators – but, for the most part only a small handful worthy of watching and especially of believing. 

I also predict that Rachel Maddow will not lose this case. 

We shall see. Thanks for stopping by.