4 March, 2023 by Eric Dunkelberger
A year ago, I was a grumbling DirecTV subscriber. I started each day watching One America News Network, then switched over to Newsmax. I can count the number of times I watched liberal news channels this century on no fingers. Never! Trump calls it Fake News and that’s an accurate description of it. Personally, I call it Sewer Stream Media.
As I said, I was grumbling about my DirecTV subscription. It was expensive, and constantly getting more so. I don’t know how many times I got a bill and it was higher than the month before. Another problem, I live within five miles of the Atlantic Ocean. During a tropical storm or hurricane (or sometimes a heavy rain storm) I’d lose the satellite signal. I had been toying with the idea of a streaming service.
That was a year ago, when the average mortgage rate was under 4% and my weekly grocery bill ran around $125. This is now, where the average mortgage rate is 6.65% and the same groceries cost around $200. During that year, DirecTV announced that they were having contract difficulties with One America News (OAN) and would be dropping the channel when the contract ends in April, 2022. That’s all hogwash, because, according to OAN owner Robert Herring, DirecTV was offered the channel at no charge during negotiations. The truth is, DirecTV and AT&T, majority holder of the company just didn’t want to carry the Conservative channel! Big Tech was trying to de-platform OAN. DirecTV obliged!
I ended my DirecTV subscription, sent back my two receivers, paid to livestream One America News from the channel and immediately went livestream from Fubo! If DirecTV didn’t want to carry a Conservative channel, I didn’t need to pay for their services! The change actually saved me about half of what I was paying the satellite company! I’m like that. I prefer not to use services that don’t like my beliefs!
So, in January 2023, I’m watching Newsmax on Fubo, having already watched OAN, and news came out that Newsmax was about to be dropped by DirecTV. Prior to being dropped, Newsmax was announcing it on every show and the news scroll at the bottom had it on the screen at least half of the time. DirecTV said it was dropping Newsmax for cost-saving reasons, but keeping 22 lower rated DemSocialist channels. Doesn’t take much of a business man to know that was a bad idea! Newsmax was dropped a little over a month ago.
Here’s the thing; after OAN was dropped, I never heard a word from Newsmax about what happened. I’m sure they were happy to acquire those viewer from OAN but didn’t cover the injustice! After they were dropped from DirecTV, They’ve asked every contributor or guest for their opinions about the abridgement of free speech. To this day, they still are! Meanwhile, DirecTV’s market value has lost around $10B!
I’m reminded of a poem by Martin Niemoller, a Lutheran pastor during World War II. It goes as follows:
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out–
because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out–
because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out–
because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me–
and there was no one left to speak out for me.
The last line says it all. Would the assault on Conservative news have been allowed had Newsmax had united with OAN to speak out? We’ll never know!
marjarhead1 