The Justice Department notified major broadcast and cable networks on Friday that it is investigating whether their decision to suspend presidential pool coverage constitutes a monopolistic effort to make the executive branch feel ignored.
The letters, issued by the department’s antitrust division to ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN, allege that the simultaneous withdrawal of White House press cameras represents a coordinated, anti-competitive boycott of the President’s face. Federal prosecutors are demanding internal emails, text messages, and Slack channels to determine if network executives illegally colluded to abruptly stop paying attention to Donald Trump on a Tuesday afternoon.
Justice Department lawyers are advancing a novel application of the Sherman Antitrust Act, arguing that broadcast television operates as an oligopoly that controls 84 percent of the nation's available viewership. By packing up their tripods and returning to their bureaus, the government claims the networks artificially restricted the supply of live, unconditional validation flowing to the Oval Office, unfairly distorting the marketplace of people who are currently looking at the president.
By coordinating their departures from the briefing room, these massive media conglomerates have formed an illegal trust designed to starve the executive branch of sustained daytime viewership.
The investigation seeks to determine whether the networks held secret meetings to agree on a unified time to lose interest in the president's remarks. The department’s preliminary filings note that the sudden absence of red recording lights caused a severe and immediate disruption to the president’s internal monologue, which relies on a heavily consolidated supply chain of network camera operators to function properly.
Prosecutors warned that if the networks are found guilty of operating a cartel of disinterest, the government will not hesitate to break the companies up into dozens of smaller, regional broadcasters that would be far more grateful for the access. The department has already begun drafting contingency plans to seize control of the pooled camera feeds and operate them as a publicly funded utility to ensure the uninterrupted manufacture of presidential relevance.
To avoid a lengthy federal lawsuit and potential forced divestiture, government regulators have proposed a consent decree. Under the terms of the settlement, the four major networks would be required to maintain a minimum of three live television cameras fixed on the president at all times, including mandatory dedicated feeds for when he is eating dinner, riding in a golf cart, or watching the networks on his own television.