Fox News’s decision to suspend its responsibilities as part of the TV pool in a demonstration of unity in response to President Donald Trump’s press access ban on CNN, MS NOW, and Politico is leaving the president with a glaring cable news coverage vacuum. Fox News announced on Monday that it, along with ABC News, […]
Page A3From§Eachthe breakfast edition — 22 September 2026
White House loses cable pool coverage to a Fox blackout, launches its own 24/7 YouTube channel instead.
As it ran on the front
Three news organizations are banned from White House grounds, and the number of press briefings held there in the more than forty days before that is one — Vice President Vance's, in early September, filling in after former press secretary Karoline Leavitt wrapped her final day in the room. Access, properly understood, isn't a briefing count or a room. It's the courtroom, which is where CNN, MS NOW and Politico took the argument this week, suing to have the ban declared unconstitutional after a September 18th Truth Social post announced it in capital letters the administration insists were not a mood.
Fox News and ABC News responded to that ban by suspending their own pool duties, a show of unity that leaves the president without the cable coverage of his own White House that the pool exists to provide. That's not retaliation against the administration. That's Fox's decision, made in solidarity with the outlets it competes against daily, and if the result happens to be a blackout of the president's own briefing room, that's — that is a blackout.…
…(cont) Which the White House filled Monday by launching its own twenty-four-hour channel on YouTube, branded in the coverage simply as Trump TV. The inaugural stream was footage of the president speaking at Mount Rushmore on July 3rd — a broadcast that aired more than two months before the channel carrying it existed, so the network's first video predates the network, which is either an editing note or the whole model.
Round the clock, no ratings to chase, no pool rotation, and after this week, no rival cameras left in the room to declare a blackout of their own. Three newsrooms are in federal court asking a judge to restore their credentials. One ally emptied the briefing room rather than cross a picket line it wasn't asked to walk. The White House answered both with a channel that has no one in the audience to ban.
“They banned three newsrooms, and Fox thanked them by turning off its own cameras like that's solidarity — solidarity with what, the ban? Then the White House builds itself a YouTube channel with zero reporters in the room, so the only news about the president comes from the president. That's not a press pool anymore, that's a press release with a play button.”
“Look, one network's blackout isn't the same as one White House's ban — the pool suspended itself, that's not retaliation, that's Fox exercising editorial judgment, which is exactly what the administration objected to in the first place, so — forget I said that part. The channel's not state media, it's efficient distribution, and if the only guest booked is the president, well, ratings don't lie, except there aren't any ratings, there's just a view count.”
The receipts
“Have you tried presidenting better?” Jon Stewart said after Trump barred CNN, MS NOW and Politico, saying he was tired of their “negative stories.”
In one of his most direct assaults on the First Amendment, President Donald Trump announced in a Friday afternoon tirade that he would ban CNN, MSNOW (formerly MSNBC), and Politico from the White House. "I am proud to announce that, effective immediately, I am banning Fake News CNN, MSNOW... and Politico from the White House as a result…
The White House on Monday launched Trump TV, a 24/7 stream on YouTube, days after President Trump banned reporters from CNN, Politico and MS NOW over their coverage of him and his administration. The inaugural video was a stream of Trump speaking at Mount Rushmore on July 3 as part of a livestream titled "Trump...
The three news organizations, which were banned from White House grounds by President Trump, are arguing that the ban is unconstitutional.
CNN, MS NOW and Politico have sued Trump after the networks were suspended from the White House. And, Paramount makes concessions to resolve a lawsuit over its massive Warner Bros. Discovery merger.
Plus, the man who helped put bugs on the menu.
· Trump's "Authoritarian Takeover" of the Media, ABC Suing FCC & the Meta Trial: Free Press's Jessica González from the morgue, 19 Aug 2026
· White House to host first press briefing in over 40 days from the morgue, 1 Sep 2026
· Vance to give White House's first press briefing in more than 40 days from the morgue, 2 Sep 2026
· Vance to give White House's first press briefing in over 40 days from the morgue, 2 Sep 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.