Ben Swann—the former local anchor who was known for reporting about conspiracy theories—has been hired by a media group backed by the Russian government to produce TV programming reportedly aimed at “undercutting America’s image and interests in the developing world.”
Swann anchored at Atlanta CBS affiliate WGCL from 2015 to 2018. He also worked at WXIX in Cincinnati and KTSM in El Paso, Texas.
While working at WGCL, Swann ran a website called Truth in Media, which focused on conspiracy theories. Atlanta media writer Rodney Ho said WGCL “forced him to take down his Truth in Media site in 2017—and fired him a year later when they found out he was trying to resuscitate it.”
In one report Swann tried to show why Pizzagate, the now debunked story about a Washington, D.C. pizza place that was supposed to be a front for a child sex trafficking ring, might be true.
From a 2017 article in the Daily Beast:
Swann is no stranger to airing pseudo-investigative reports of elaborate conspiracies on the local affiliate of TV’s most watched national network, at his former employer Russia Today and on his own website, Truth in Media—which shares a contact phone number with a prominent member of the Republican Liberty Caucus, a tax-exempt 527 political committee.
On its website, The Liberty Caucus said its mission is “to return the Republican Party to its ideological roots of limited government, free enterprise and personal liberty and responsibility.”
Axios reported that Swann has been given more than $5 million to produce programming that is “aimed in large part at undercutting America’s image and interests in the developing world, records show.”
Swann is creating four programs for Russian media companies TV Novosti, Kart LLC and an Armenian company called Stark Industries LLC.