OAN Owner Robert Herring Sr. is Setting the Record Straight

At 80-years-young Robert Herring Sr. has a lot of wisdom to convey, if you’ll let him. “We rented an old railroad boxcar to live in,” Herring recalled to Barrett News Media in an email exchange. For years his father, Alfred Shelby Herring, worked in California and sent money home to Louisiana. Saving what they could the family of 4 reunited in California. “Things were pretty tight for a while,” Herring said of his youth.

As a child he attended school and found work on the side by shining shoes. At 12, Herring was working alongside his father on DiGiorgio Farms. “I had to lie and say I was older than I really was,” Herring added. “I worked on the grape vines, crawling under them on my hands and knees through the dirt and mud to straighten them out and keep them clean and healthy so they’d grow properly.” The money he earned helped pay for the family’s food and rent.

Soon after, the Herrings moved to Los Angeles. His father got a better job working in the oil fields. “[My father] ended up having a pretty serious fall and after that he couldn’t work anymore,” Herring said. A few months after the fall Herring’s father passed away at 55. “We were all on our own, my mom and sister and I. I had to support our family, I was just a teenager,” Herring recalled.

His mom working overnights, and Herring delivered newspapers to “make ends meet.” His journalistic roots run deeper than just delivering papers. “[I] didn’t much get along with the people running the [high] school, so I started a newspaper called the Inky Press,” Herring shared. “I started publishing stories they didn’t care for.”

He was offered a punishment and ordered to apologize but instead Herring made his own way. “I left the school. I took a test and got the rest of my high school credits and I was done with it.”

Herring got a job cleaning eggs, and from there stocked shelves in a store, fell in love and got married (for the first time). “I was about 18 years old at this point, and that’s when I went to work for AT&T.”

Driving AT&T’s CEO around in the company car wasn’t enough so Herring started a side hustle. “I started grooming dogs, and wouldn’t you know, that turned out to be a pretty good gig. The pay was surprisingly good, so I quit AT&T and opened up a pet shop,” Herring said.

He opened a second pet shop before, “I found after a while I didn’t really care for running a pet shop.” His next job, “Driving a concrete truck, which was a lot of fun but I wasn’t very good at it,” Herring said.

Thereafter, Herring made gas ranges for cooking before moving on to circuit boards. Working from the ground up he made enough connections and bought his first circuit board company. “My first day on the job, I went around contacting all the employees who were let go [by the old owners], and told them they could have their jobs back, which was a great move.”

From 1980 through the millennium, Herring built and sold his first company then built and sold a second circuit board company. In the process, he met President Ronald Regan and became friendly with the President’s son, Michael. Herring also went though 2 divorces. After selling his last company Herring did something he’d never done before. “I used the time to step back and see what I wanted to do with my life.” He married his current wife in 2000.

Ready for a new challenge Herring started Herring Networks in 2003. “I figured since I loved watching TV, it’d be fun to start my own television channel,” Herring recalled, “I thought people would probably be interested in watching stories about living the good life, traveling and nice houses and cars and that sort of thing.” Wealth TV was created but it wasn’t enough for Herring, so in 2013 he launched OAN, One America News Network.

OAN is widely considered by legacy and new wave media outlets to be one of the most conservative networks in America. Many critics call them ‘Far-right.’ However, in a blind bias survey conducted by All Sides Media they found OAN to be ‘Right Leaning,’ demonstrating less bias than their competitor Newsmax, who scored ‘Right.’ The same survey rates OAN as equally ‘Right Leaning’ as Fox News, with a score of 3.10. All Sides Media rates outlets on a scale of -6 (left) to 6 (right) 0 being centered or neutral in their reporting).

Herring feels the mischaracterization is because of legacy media. “The problem is the media is quick to jump to conclusions and paint their own version of events. We don’t report the popular narrative, we report the truth, and that tends to make enemies.”

Enemies like Dominion, who allege OAN made unfounded claims about their technology rigging the 2020 election. While the network settled one defamation lawsuit earlier this year, there are several others pending. All of which could mean financial stress for the network. When asked to speak on it Herring said, “I can’t talk about Dominion or any of our lawsuits, for obvious reasons.”

Herring wants to set the record straight with his critics. He admits, “At one point I supported Hillary Clinton—and I even voted for Obama!” He later added, “We report the news, just the facts, as we find them. I think that’s what really sets us apart from everyone else.”

Looking to the future Herring has a lot of concerns. “Things are worse than I’ve ever seen before. Not in my 80 years have I seen things this bad. We’re more divided than ever.” Herring added “People out there are killing each other over the dumbest things and it doesn’t have to be this way.”

After the lawsuits from 2020 are done Herring’s goal for OAN is simple. “We’re going to get back to doing what we do best: reporting on the news and giving the American people the stories they can’t find anywhere else.”

Krystina Alarcon Carroll

Krystina Alarcon Carroll contributes features and columns for Barrett Media. She has experience in almost every facet of the industry including: digital and print news; live, streamed, and syndicated TV; documentary and film productions. Her prior employers have included NY1 and Fox News Digital and the Law & Crime Network. You can find Krystina on X (formerly twitter) @KrystinaAlaCarr.