Recently, an event unfolded within the White House press corps that highlights the concentration of television news. This incident has shown how a group composed of five major networks is able to suppress information from the White House and, by extension, from the President himself.
To provide some context, the White House television “pool” is made up of ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC, and Fox—what some are calling the Five-Network Cartel. These networks take turns each day to cover events at the White House, covering places like the Oval Office, the Cabinet Room, and other locations in the West Wing.
When President Trump decided to exclude CNN, MSNBC, and Politico due to their persistently biased reporting, the television pool promptly ceased coverage of the President’s events. Bryan Boughton, the Washington bureau chief for Fox News and the rotational chairman of the pool, made this announcement: “Starting today, there will be no coverage of events identified as pool coverage of the President. This follows the White House’s decision to block CNN from carrying out its assigned duties. There will be no replacement pool.”
This decision is quite telling. CNN was denied its turn, and instead of having another network step in, all five networks agreed to not cover the events at all. It’s noteworthy that Fox, which could have broken ranks, opted to stand in solidarity with the others.
CNN’s Kaitlan Collins even commended Fox for their unity, to which the Associated Press referred similarly. The term “solidarity” does have a historical context—Karl Marx famously emphasized it as a foundational principle.
Ironically, this situation recalls a past event when then-Fox News president Jay Wallace expressed support for CNN when they were excluded from a White House event in 2018, stating they “stand in strong solidarity with CNN for the right to full access for our journalists.”
This scenario presents an interesting contrast. Here you have CNN—often regarded as left-leaning—aligning with Fox, which is typically seen as right-wing.
But there’s another layer to this situation, one involving the broader print media. In contrast to the television pool, there exists a print media pool comprising over 30 outlets, from major names like The New York Times and The Washington Post to smaller publications. Unlike the television networks, this print media has continued to operate without interruption, even amid the exclusion of one member. This highlights a distinction between a tightly-knit oligopoly and a more competitive print environment.
This leads back to Fox News. Although one might expect Fox to oppose the Five Network Cartel—given how other networks have historically portrayed President Trump negatively—it played along with the group instead. In the context of antitrust economics, a network like Fox could have acted independently to shake up the oligopolistic agreement, but instead, it appeared to support the cartel.
If Fox had fully embraced a pro-Trump stance, it might have sought to assert itself as a maverick in the group. Yet, it seems to have prioritized conforming to group cohesion over informing the public.
Moreover, Fox increasingly appears to be moving away from pro-Trump sentiment. After President Trump’s address on election security in July, Fox’s leadership directed its shows to minimize discussion of the topic. The next morning, their flagship show resorted to its usual antics without acknowledging significant points raised by the President regarding foreign interference in elections.
The head of Fox, Suzanne Scott, has been involved in the decision-making that led to the departure of several pro-Trump personalities from the network over the years. The rise of individuals such as Karl Rove—a notable Trump critic—highlights the shift in editorial direction.
In this environment, some conservative outlets, like Real America’s Voice, have begun to provide coverage often overlooked by mainstream networks. Perhaps the key takeaway from this situation is that the White House television pool does not need to be dominated by a group that operates under a shared anti-MAGA perspective.
