United States President Donald Trump launched a round-the-clock YouTube channel run by the White House on Monday. The move follows his banning of CNN, MS NOW (formerly MSNBC), and Politico from reporting from the White House on Friday, prompting five major television networks to suspend coverage on Monday morning in protest. The spat has triggered a wave of lawsuits from broadcasters, with the president warning on Saturday that he might ban other outlets for broadcasting what he claims is “fake news”.
Alongside his own social media platform, Truth Social, Trump appears to be trying to bypass mainstream media. But is this possible, and has anyone tried it before? There are no anchors, no reporters and no original journalism.
Instead, it broadcasts speeches, administration announcements, ceremonial events and selected highlights from Trump’s presidency. On Friday, Trump said he was banning CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House, prompting a flurry of condemnation from several major media outlets and media rights watchdogs. On Truth Social, he accused the outlets of propagating “fake news”.
He added that the outlets “constantly write or report fiction or lies” about the Trump administration, but did not give any examples. On Monday, the banned outlets sued the Trump administration for denying them their First Amendment rights. Trump responded to the suit in a statement posted on Truth Social, lashing out at what he called the “fake news people”, and saying that “the Oval Office … should be treated with Decorum, Respect, and Dignity, not defiled by Third Rate Clowns”.
The television news pool then announced it was suspending its coverage of the president’s events. The White House broadcasting pool is made up of five networks – ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox News and NBC. They take turns filming the president, providing live feeds that are picked up by the networks and outlets around the world.
When the White House blocked CNN from the rotation on Monday, the other four refused to replace the network. The result was an awkward broadcast in which a White House ribbon-cutting ceremony attended by Trump, surrounded by workers in hard hats and safety vests, was broadcast by US news outlet Newsmax with only live visuals and no audio because no television press pool was present. Other news outlets also showed solidarity with the press pool.
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