“Sometimes they’re good stories that get forwarded to us that are from the wires, which we assign and write as necessary. But every now and then producers get a story forwarded to them that is conspiratorial and has little in the way of credible sources or facts. But the thing is since it comes from the top, we don’t have a choice on whether or not we want to run it out of fear of retaliation,” the source said, saying that stories assigned from Herring are nicknamed “H stories,” which was confirmed by a second source.

The second source told the Washington Examiner that these “H stories” are “always the stories that gets the network in trouble” because they receive “no pushback.”

Charles Herring, the network’s president and the son of Robert Herring Sr., did not respond to a request for comment.

OANN, which has garnered a reputation for being a pro-Trump network that the president has praised as a friendlier alternative to Fox News, most recently faced a wave of scrutiny from a segment on Martin Gugino, 75, the Buffalo protester who was shoved to the ground by police officers last week. OANN reporter Kristian Rouz, a Russian national who also writes for the Kremlin-controlled Sputnik, said the demonstrator was employing “common antifa tactics” in his face-off with law enforcement, which ended with him unconscious on the ground and bleeding from one ear.

President Trump amplified the report in a tweet on Tuesday. “Buffalo protester shoved by Police could be an ANTIFA provocateur. 75 year old Martin Gugino was pushed away after appearing to scan police communications in order to black out the equipment. @OANN I watched, he fell harder than was pushed. Was aiming scanner. Could be a set up?” Trump wrote on his verified Twitter account.

OANN’s average audience in metered markets was 14,000 viewers in spring 2019, approximately 25 times smaller than CNN, Fox News, or MSNBC, according to a one-time Nielsen Media Research comparison. When Trump tweets, it opens a large well of attention from his 81.9 million followers and any superseding news coverage.

Political commentators and journalists from CNN, NBC, and the Daily Caller, two former White House press secretaries from previous administrations, and others condemned the OANN report and the president’s decision to elevate it.

Ari Fleischer, who served as White House press secretary during President George W. Bush’s administration and is currently a Fox News contributor, tweeted: “The President’s penchant for trafficking in conspiracy theories is, politically speaking, going to ruin him. This is reckless. He doesn’t know when to stop.”

Charles Herring defended Rouz’s reporting in the face of the criticism.

“From numerous sources, OAN’s investigative team is aware of Mr. Gugino’s anti-Police sentiment and statements,” he said in a statement to the Washington Examiner earlier this week. “As you may know, his social media accounts have been deleted, covering-up his anti-authority affirmations. Mr. Gugino refused to comply with the repeated requests of police officers. OAN aired the initial package extensively. Additional, new detailed reporting of OAN’s findings will be airing today.”

A third source said it was Charles Herring, more so than his father, who was the main force behind the occasionally loosened editorial standards for more questionable stories. This person described the younger Herring as having a “shoot first, ask questions later” or “fly by the seat of their pants” mentality.

The Gugino report, however, was an order directly from the top.

“We get an email about it, we get the story assigned and into the show, so we don’t upset the guy upstairs,” that first source said, who shared an email from Robert Herring addressed to “OANN producers” and two others with the Washington Examiner, which included a link to Conservative Treehouse, a blog Rouz cited in her report. The post, from a user named “Sundance,” claimed Gugino was a “75-year-old professional agitator and Antifa provocateur” who “was attempting to capture the radio communications signature of Buffalo police officers” but did not provide evidence to support the allegations other than an assessment of bystander video of the encounter.

Mike Brest

The headline of the June 6 email sent by Robert Herring said, “75 year old man pushed Run if we haven’t.”

Shortly thereafter, a employee at OANN responded to the email confirming the network had “a story on this in the show that’s been running since 8p.”

The segment aired on Monday night, the day before Trump tweeted about it. The clip is not on the channel’s YouTube page; it is unclear if it was posted and deleted or never posted at all to the platform.

OANN correspondent Pearson Sharp offered a critique Wednesday evening of how journalists and social media reacted to Rouz’s report.

“The media has been quick to blame the police in this case, but there’s obviously a lot more going on here than the news networks and social media would have you believe,” Sharp said on-air. “There are simply too many pieces to this story that just don’t add up.”

He also repeated some of Rouz’s reporting but with more nebulous attribution and notes of uncertainty.

“Some have suggested” that Gugino used a scanning device designed to intercept police communications, Sharp said, adding, “It’s not certain that this is what Martin intended to do, but in the video, you can clearly see him waving his phone over the officer’s chest, which is exactly what you do if you’re using a capture scanner.”

Sharp said Gugino “was active in anarchy groups and even posted and contributed to an anarchist reading group.”

Among OANN’s defenders was the network’s White House correspondent, Chanel Rion, who tweeted: “As if it weren’t embarrassing enough working for @MSNBC – Do your homework, Kyle.” In the tweet, she tagged Kyle Griffin, a senior producer of MSNBC’s The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell, along with OANN and Sharp.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to include screenshots of internal OANN emails.