OAN fires staffer who called out the network over voter fraud lies
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- A producer who recently went on the record to criticize OAN has been fired.
- The network sacked Marty Golingan on Monday, according to a New York Times reporter.
- Golingan was one of several employees who blasted OAN for its election fraud lies.
- See more stories on Insider's business page.
One America News Network fired a producer who recently went on the record to criticize the cable channel's handling of the 2020 election, according to Rachel C. Abrams, a New York Times reporter who published a story about the network over the weekend.
Marty Golingan, who had been a producer with OAN since 2016, told Abrams that it would be a "badge of honor" should he end up getting fired for speaking out in the story.
This comes on the heels of around a dozen OAN staffers leaving the network in recent months after its handling of the January 6 insurrection on Capitol Hill.
-Rachel C. Abrams (@RachelAbramsNY) April 19, 2021
"I've given up my journalistic integrity already, and to be fired, that would make me feel good," Golingan told Abrams for her story on OAN's role in promoting Trump falsehoods. "I would wear it like a badge of honor."
OAN did not return Insider's request for comment on Golingan's departure, which he confirmed on his Twitter account on Monday.
-Marty Golingan (@mgolingan1) April 19, 2021
Along with the likes of Newsmax and Fox News, OAN came under legal pressure from the Dominion Voting Systems Corporation for implicating their voting machines in a conspiracy theory falsely claiming the election was stolen from Trump. OAN even went so far as to air a lengthy and awkward disclaimer that disavowed its own election coverage.
In the Times story on the turmoil inside OAN, Golingan said he began to worry about the rightward lurch in his employer's coverage after the election, but the Capitol riot served as a bigger wake up call.
"I was like, OK, that's not good," Golingan said, recalling how he spotted OAN flags among the insurrectionists. "That's what happens when people listen to us."