White House press monopoly exposes risks of news blackout, as RAV steps in with new pool feed

President Donald Trump’s ban of CNN, MS NOW and Politico from White House grounds last week did more than pick a fight with three newsrooms. It exposed how easily the country’s main picture of the presidency can go dark.

Trump announced the order Friday on Truth Social, saying the outlets “shouldn’t be able to constantly write or report FICTION and LIES.” On Saturday, their reporters were turned away and had hard passes confiscated. A federal judge on Wednesday refused to immediately restore the press privileges to those outlets, though he sounded skeptical about the grounds for their ban.

The more glaring lapse came Monday. After the White House blocked CNN from its assigned turn in the five-network television pool, ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox News declined in solidarity to fill the slot. 

As a result, there was no shared network video of Trump boarding Air Force One. 

Additionally, at a South Lawn ribbon-cutting for a new Marine One helipad, helicopter noise swallowed his remarks on the White House livestream.

In short, Americans were deprived of the chance to hear completely what their commander-in-chief said and did.

But one conservative network, Real America’s Voice, a partner of Just the News, is stepping into the void to create competition and a backup plan.

The White House listed RAV as secondary TV crew for the New York trip to the United Nations General Assembly gathering and on Wednesday, RAV said it would offer its pool camera as a free, unbranded feed to any outlet.

“When the traditional television pool chose to stand down, somebody still had to show up, turn the cameras on, and make sure the American public had access to the President," Parker Sigg, RAV's vice president, told Just the News. "RAV was ready to do exactly that. We have the crews, the infrastructure, and the ability to distribute this coverage far beyond our own network.

He added: "We are providing clean, unwatermarked feeds, a public live stream, and direct professional distribution to outside media organizations that want it. If others decide not to cover the President, that is their decision. Our job is to keep the cameras rolling and make sure the footage is available to everyone who wants access.”

During the UN trip, Trump appeared with New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and dismissed talk of a boycott: “They said they were going to boycott me, but they never boycott me.” At the U.N. on Tuesday, he told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, “You should not be here covering me” after she showed up.

The walkout also exposed a structural problem. For decades, a tight circle of Washington outlets controlled the shared feed everyone else used. The White House Correspondents’ Association long ran the print and travel rotations. Separately, five networks ran the TV camera. When those five stood down together, the official picture and sound of the president vanished. That is a monopoly’s single point of failure.

Past attempts to break the arrangement were incremental. In 2009, the Obama Treasury Department tried to leave Fox News out of a pooled interview; the other networks refused to go without Fox, and the exclusion collapsed. 

In 2017, then-press secretary Sean Spicer held a gaggle that shut out CNN and The New York Times while admitting newer conservative outlets. Those fights were about who got in the room. They did not build a second camera.

In February 2025, press secretary Karoline Leavitt said a “select group of D.C.-based journalists should no longer have a monopoly of press access” and the White House took over pool selection, adding new-media seats, podcasts and networks long locked out. The five-network TV rotation still sat on top of that change. This week proved why that leftover lock mattered.

John Solomon, a veteran journalist and founder of Just The News, has argued for years that it is time for the White House to allow a second press association to compete with the White House Correspondents’ Association. He said this week the latest episode heightened the need for such competition while exposing another issue for legacy press: trust.

The reason for Trump's expulsion of the three news outlets was concerns about alleged and repeated inaccuracies in their coverage, or "fake news" as the president calls it.

"I would be more interested if their colleagues worry less about access and more about accuracy. Because I will tell you, a lot of these publications that are singled out here have had a bad record of accuracy, a bad record of non-neutrality, a bad record of bias, and I think they should focus on that first," Solomon said.

"Maybe they wouldn't have as many issues with access if they cleaned up their reporting," Solomon added. 

Editor's Note: Real America's Voice is a strategic partner with Just the News. Amanda Head is the White House Correspondent for Just the News. You can follow her here. John Solomon has taken a temporary leave of absence as Just the News Editor in Chief as he is working as a part-time, unpaid special government employee helping the White House declassify information to release to the American people.