'We’re a Trump propaganda network': This far-right media company continues to give Bannon a platform for misinformation

'We’re a Trump propaganda network': This far-right media company continues to give Bannon a platform for misinformation
Steve Bannon // Credit: Gage Skidmore
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Steve Bannon, the far-right figure who worked as a White House advisor to former President Donald Trump, has been exiled from multiple networks and social media platform. But one conservative platform is continuing to give him a voice.

According to The Washington Post's Isaac Stanley-Becker, Bannon appears to have found a home with Robert J. Sigg's Real America's Voice.

"The network, Real America’s Voice, helped sustain Bannon despite his removal from YouTube, Spotify and other mainstream platforms," Stanley-Becker writes. "It brings his show into as many as 8 million homes hooked up to Dish satellite television, many in rural, conservative areas without reliable cable coverage."

In 2019, Bannon launched "War Room," which resulted in the conservative right-wing podcast being picked up by multiple networks like Newsmax and the Salem Radio Network. However, he was not exactly pleased with the time slots he had been offered. But, Sigg, according to Bannon, was “much more flexible.

"I need those big blocks," Bannon said of his time slot on Sigg's Real America's Voice.

Bannon also noted that the show has grown significantly since it was banned from YouTube and picked up by Sigg.

Per The Washington Post:

"Bannon said his audience depends on Sigg’s network and the show’sradio distribution. The audio on Apple Podcasts, even though it ranks in that platform’s top 100 shows, is 'kind of an afterthought,' Bannon said. On a recent show, he said his removal from YouTube about a year earlier had expanded his reach. 'When it was taken down on YouTube, the show got 10 times bigger,' he argued."

Adding Bannon to Real America's Voice opened the door for Sigg to also recruit more prominent voices in support of TrumpWorld. Sigg's close proximity to the former president's Mar-a-Lago Club also served as an advantage.

"With Bannon locked in, Sigg set out to recruit more pro-Trump talent in 2020, current and former employees said, while also making personal investments in the president’s adopted state," Stanley-Becker wrote. "Already the owner of a hilltop home overlooking Denver, Sigg purchased two waterfront estates in Lake Worth, Fla., each for more than $1.5 million, property records show. They lie about five miles from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club.

The network has centered its platform around Bannon. Stanley-Becker noted writes that Bannon's elevation underscores the flaws in America's media landscape as it "reveals how the country’s fractured media landscape has empowered unconventional actors following market incentives toward more and more extreme content."

A former Real America's Voice producer, who spoke anonymously, sold the Post, “we were told fairly regularly we were Trump propaganda."

“That is what our role was," the producer said. "That was the message from the top: ‘We’re a Trump propaganda network.’ That’s where the money was.”

As the network continues to grow, it is becoming available on more platforms. In addition to the Dish Network, the right-wing network, per Stanley-Becker, is also available on "Pluto TV, Roku, Amazon Fire, Apple TV, and Google Play."

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