Major TV Networks Halt White House Pool Coverage After CNN Is Barred
Major television networks have agreed to suspend their shared White House pool coverage after CNN was barred from carrying out an assigned pool duty. The move followed President Trump’s announcement Friday that CNN, Politico, and MS Now would be banned from the White House “effective immediately.”
ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox News, and NBC had shared responsibility for providing television coverage of the President and distributing the footage across the airwaves. CNN had reportedly been slated to cover the President’s travel to New York, but was apparently removed from the rotation.
The daily guidance for the White House Press Pool, which includes the President’s schedule and the day’s pool assignments, did not list a television station in the TV pool. Instead, Real America’s Voice was slated to take over as the secondary TV pool crew.
Following CNN’s exclusion from the day’s events, Fox News Washington bureau chief Bryan Boughton, who leads the television pool consortium, told pool members that the television pool would no longer cover the President, according to the New York Times.
“Effective today, the TV pool will not be covering events designated as pool coverage of the President,” Boughton wrote.
“This follows the White House’s position preventing CNN from fulfilling its assigned pool duties.”
“There will be no replacement pool put in place. All other pool coverage will continue as normal,” he added.
“We will provide updates as this situation develops.”
That leaves the central question unresolved. Are the outlets suspending coverage in protest of the White House’s ban on CNN, or is the White House blocking the primary TV pool and shifting those duties to the secondary pool? It remains unclear.
When asked whether the primary TV pool could be removed from the daily guidance going forward, the White House pointed to the President’s earlier Truth Social statement. Trump said:
“The White House is not instituting an assault on the Free Press, something which I cherish. It is instituting an assault on the FAKE NEWS, something that has grown like Cancer in our beloved United States of America. It is corrupt, purposeful, pervasive, fully coordinated, and totally out of control. It is a threat to our National Security, and must be stopped, NOW!”
The dispute is also moving toward court. CNN, MS Now, and Politico announced plans to sue the Trump administration over the ban and the revocation of their White House credentials.
Following the ban, Fox News correspondent Jaqui Heinrich, who the report identifies as president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, issued a statement:
The president said it plainly in the Oval Office, describing his own planned action as a “ban on the free press.” The Constitution protects the freedom of the press from government interference. That protection does not depend on whether the president likes a news organization’s coverage, agrees with its reporting, or approves of the questions its journalists ask. This is about more than the rights of journalists. It is about the right of the American people to receive a full and independent account of the activities, policies and decisions of whoever occupies the nation’s highest office. The WHCA stands in defense of our colleagues at CNN, MSNOW, and Politico who are being singled out for doing their jobs.
Heinrich later criticized the White House over the revocation of the outlets’ hard passes, saying it “violates the First Amendment.” She also argued that “a standard used to exclude one news outlet because of its coverage could be applied to any outlet in the future.”
The report, however, points to what it describes as a double standard. It says the same organization did not object when the Biden Regime purged more than 442 reporters with similar restrictions on White House hard passes.
For now, the television pool system remains at the center of the fight. The primary networks say they will not cover events designated as presidential pool coverage, while Real America’s Voice has been assigned the secondary TV pool role. Whether that arrangement continues—and whether the current standoff is a protest or an access decision—remains unclear.
This is a developing story.
Source: The Gateway Pundit