Well, of course.
President Trump has issued a ban on the presence of media outlets CNN, MS NOW, and Politico in the White House press pool.
And you would think the world is ending. Here’s a sample headline, this one from USA Today: “Trump bans media outlets CNN, MS NOW, Politico from White House.” (RELATED: Does the Press Understand the First Amendment?)
USA Today’s story begins this way:
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said on Friday he is banning three major news outlets – CNN, MS NOW and Politico – from the White House in his latest move to crack down on the independent press.
The move is almost certain to face legal challenges as free speech experts said it conflicts with the US Constitution’s First Amendment protections for free speech and a free press.
Trump accused the outlets of “reporting FAKE NEWS” in a social media post, and said they “shouldn’t be able to constantly write or report FICTION and LIES when they’re covering the President of the United States.” Trump added, “Other Fake News Media Outlets to follow.”
Note well that Politico describes the Trump ban as affecting “Media Outlets.” Not “liberal media activists” but “Media Outlets.”
This news was received in the media as — no surprise! — something akin to the end of the world.
The media was suddenly flush with outraged reporting. Note well this from Mediate:
President Donald Trump participated in a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the White House on Monday, an event that was not carried live by the WH television pool, but only on the White House’s official feed.
As Trump was not near a network mic, his remarks at the ribbon-cutting for the new helipad were completely drowned out by background noise. Notably, so-called “chopper talk” is often difficult to hear, but the White House press pool helps to clear out the background noise with their mics.
Trump’s event was not carried live by broadcast or cable news networks as Fox News, ABC News, CBS News, CNN, and NBC News joined together on Monday and pulled their TV cameras from White House pool, effectively boycotting coverage of the Trump White House following the ban on CNN, MS NOW, and Politico.
But of particular note was this other Mediate headline which revealed, one can believe, more than intended. The headline: “‘Extraordinary Show of Solidarity!’ Media World Floored By Rival Networks Banding Together to Fight Trump Ban.”
This jewel of a story unintentionally confirmed longtime charges of liberal media bias. The story reported this:
Fox News, ABC News, CBS News, CNN, and NBC News joined together on Monday and pulled their TV cameras from White House pool, effectively boycotting coverage of the Trump White House following the ban on CNN, MS NOW, and Politico.
“The public has a vital interest in receiving accurate, independent information about its government. No administration should restrict a news organization because it objects to its reporting,” said the five networks that make up the White House TV press pool in a joint statement.
The move was led by White House TV pool rotational chair and Fox News Washington Bureau Chief Bryan Boughton, who wrote, “Effective today, the TV pool will not be covering events designated as pool coverage of the President. This follows the White House’s position preventing CNN from fulfilling its assigned pool duties. There will be no replacement pool put in place.” Boughton’s advisory was for Monday, and it is unclear if it applies going forward.
All of which is to say, the president has outed the media for what it really is. Namely, the vast majority of the media is really not about just-the-facts journalism. It is really about liberal activism. That, as underlined by this reaction from the White House press corps, is really — seriously really! — about nothing more than advancing the liberal activist agenda of the moment.
My Newsmax colleague Todd Starnes noted this:
“The public has a vital interest in receiving accurate, independent information about its government,” the networks said. “No administration should restrict a news organization because it objects to its reporting.”
“The problem is that the networks are not providing accurate information about the government.
There is absolutely no difference between the newsrooms at Fox and CNN or PMS-NOW.
The only question is whether President Trump will pull the plug on administration officials doing interviews on Fox.
Were any member of the White House press pool to write and report a story that ran completely counter to the conventional left-wing propaganda streaming out of the White House press corps, there would be un-shirted you-know-what that would erupt from the “journalists-who-are-really-liberal-activists.”
Note well this recent story from, yes, Politico:
The administration’s embrace of alternative conservative outlets continues a pattern from Trump’s first term, but the divide between the MAGA-friendly media and their more mainstream counterparts has become visible in the briefing room in a way it wasn’t before. Without dedicated seats of their own, a group of about a dozen new media reporters have taken to gathering in the “conservative corner” — as some reporters call it — along the far wall of the briefing room, near the “new media seat” that Trump’s press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, has set aside for a rotating cast of alternative outlets and conservative influencers.
Make no mistake. As is discernible right there, the liberal activists pretending to be independent journalists are not happy at the appearance of any remotely conservative journalist in the White House press room.
And suffice to say, there is history here. Lots of it, going back decades to the emergence of William F. Buckley Jr. and his pioneering conservative publication National Review (The 1950s). Buckley was promptly dumped on by the liberal media of his day, a pattern that became the norm as the conservative media gained strength over the coming years.
In short? (Or long?) Here we are in 2026, decades after Bill Buckley opened the door to focusing on the myth of non-partisan journalism and revealing it to be a mask for liberal media activism.
Which is to say, the more things change, the more they stay the same.
Liberal journalists masquerading as independent journalists are decidedly not.
The president gets it.
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