The Department of Justice has launched an antitrust investigation into the White House television press pool after the group of broadcasters, including CNN, Fox News, ABC, CBS, and NBC, temporarily suspended pooled TV coverage of President Donald Trump. The DOJ says it’s looking at whether the coordinated halt violated the Sherman Act, the federal law that prohibits agreements that unreasonably restrain trade.
The Sherman Act dates back to the 1890s and has rarely, if ever, been aimed at media organizations over their editorial decisions. So yes, we are living in very interesting times. The press pool killed its coverage on September 21, shortly after Trump banned CNN, MSNOW, and Politico from White House access, saying those outlets “shouldn’t be able to constantly write or report FICTION and LIES when they’re covering the President of the United States, the Trump Administration, or the United States of America.
A judge lifted the access restrictions on September 24, a few days after White House staff confiscated the banned reporters’ press passes. Even after the ruling, reporters from CNN and Politico were still barred from boarding Air Force One, according to the New York Times. The Trump administration now faces a lawsuit from CNN, MSNOW, and Politico over the whole ordeal. TV pool coverage has since resumed, because apparently the networks decided they missed the front row after all. You can follow DOJ White House press pool probe for all the latest developments as this fight keeps rolling.
Seth Stern, chief of advocacy for the Freedom of the Press Foundation, was not impressed by the DOJ move. Depriving Trump of the attention he craves is not a competitive harm,” he said, adding that antitrust law has long recognized First Amendment exceptions even when anticompetitive impact exists. He also pointed out the irony pretty directly: “After all his ‘fake news’ rhetoric, Trump is weaponizing the DOJ to pressure the networks he calls the ‘enemy of the people’ to stay at the White House. It’s a weird way of telling the press how much he missed them.”
This investigation is just the latest chapter in the Trump administration’s broader push back against hostile media coverage. Trump moved to pull about $1.1 billion in previously approved funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which funds NPR and PBS. The administration has also filed lawsuits against the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and BBC News over alleged biases and inaccuracies. The media establishment spent years calling Trump a threat to democracy, and now they’re shocked, shocked, that there are consequences for playing games with press access.
The White House Correspondents’ Association did not respond to a request for comment. Members of the press pool also didn’t respond to CNBC’s requests sent outside normal business hours, which is fair, everyone deserves a night off, even the people who just tried to blackout the President of the United States on television.
The DOJ investigation is ongoing, and the networks will have to decide whether unified coverage boycotts are worth the antitrust headache. Turns out the “enemy of the people” hits back, but now you understand why Trump constantly calls them the fake news media.
