Sherman Act Probe of the TV Pool Turns on Who Gained From the Boycott

In 1981, CNN sued ABC, CBS, NBC and the Reagan White House in federal court in Atlanta to get into a television pool that, the court record says, "has been rotated among CBS, ABC, and NBC." The networks, a court order notes, raised their union contracts "as defenses to antitrust claims against them." CNN, by its own account, won its place.

Forty-five years later, the Justice Department's Antitrust Division is investigating that pool's five networks, ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox News and NBC, over whether their September suspension of coverage of President Donald Trump broke antitrust law. Lawyers for some of the networks received document demands on Friday, Oct. 9, according to two sources cited by CNN; ABC said it had not been notified but expected to be. The New York Times first reported the probe on Saturday, Oct. 10, and the department confirmed it.

"Members of the television press pool have boycotted covering White House events. Group boycotts among commercial competitors can violate the Sherman Act. The Antitrust Division is simply investigating to determine whether these news organizations have violated the antitrust laws."

Emily Covington, Justice Department spokeswoman

Some versions of the statement added the word "proudly."

Can the government turn antitrust law on networks for refusing to cover the president? It can investigate: the Supreme Court held in 1945 that the press has no antitrust exemption. But the court also separates competitors who jointly refuse to deal to win something for themselves, which is illegal, from a political boycott whose members seek nothing for themselves, which the First Amendment protects. A four-day protest to get a rival back into its slot sits closer to the second. Still, the probe need not win to bite: its demands reach the networks' internal messages while CNN is suing the White House.

What the department asked for

A Justice Department official told NBC News the department sent "civil investigative demands." Under 15 U.S.C. §1312, the attorney general or the Antitrust Division's chief may issue one when there is "reason to believe" someone holds material "relevant to a civil antitrust investigation." It is an order to hand over records, not a charge.

CNN reported the demands covered the pool, "including its formation and its recent operations." Per the Times, investigators want "communications among network officials that concerned pool coverage of Mr. Trump, along with any communications about Mr. Trump's revocation of CNN's access to the White House grounds." The demands arrived 21 days after Trump announced his ban. The probe, CNN noted, came two weeks after Trump ally Laura Loomer publicly urged the department to challenge the networks on antitrust grounds. NBC, CBS and CNN declined to comment.

From a ban to a blackout

On Friday, Sept. 18, Trump said he was banning CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House complex, citing "their constant 'reporting' FAKE NEWS!" CNN was blocked from its pool turn. On Monday, Sept. 21, pool chair Bryan Boughton, Fox News's Washington bureau chief, emailed that "effective today, the TV pool will not be covering events designated as pool coverage of the President," and "There will be no replacement pool put in place." The five networks issued a joint statement.

"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." — White House television pool members: ABC News, CBS News, CNN, Fox News Media, NBC…

— NBC News PR (@NBCNewsPR) September 21, 2026

It asks for no fee and no market share. That may become the networks' best exhibit.

Trump's first event without a pool camera, a ribbon-cutting for his new helipad, went out on the White House livestream, his remarks drowned out by helicopter noise. On Thursday, Sept. 24, U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly found the ban likely unconstitutional and ordered access restored. The pool resumed Friday, Sept. 25, with CBS covering Chinese President Xi Jinping's arrival. "We appreciate the fair coverage. It's been very fair," Trump told the camera, TheDesk reported.

Most coverage called the halt brief. The coordination outlasted it. On Saturday, Sept. 26, the White House left CNN off Air Force One for the Tennessee–Texas game in Knoxville and seated Real America's Voice, not a pool member, instead. The other networks declined to provide a substitute, The New York Times reported in an article republished by the Boston Globe. Citing four people briefed on the deliberations, the Times described a tentative plan: "Each time that CNN comes up in the pool rotation, the group of networks will decide whether to provide a substitute crew. Otherwise, CNN's slot will be left unfilled, and Trump will not receive major network coverage." Pool coverage has since resumed.

A shared camera with paying customers

Space near the president is scarce (Air Force One has 13 seats for reporters, per Al Jazeera), so the five networks take turns, share the costs and share the footage. Each daily turn supplies a camera operator, an audio technician and a producer or reporter. CNN calls it "a costly 365-day-a-year endeavor, with multi-day trips often costing tens of thousands of dollars."

The subscribers make the antitrust question concrete. Newsmax, One America News Network, C-SPAN and international outlets take pool video, NBC News reported. When the pool went dark, those outlets, some of them rivals, lost the pictures too.

Where the Supreme Court draws the line

Section 1 of the Sherman Act, from 1890, bans "Every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade." A group boycott, a concerted refusal to deal, fits that language. Three cases decide when it is illegal and when it is protected.

Case	Who refused to deal	What they wanted	Outcome
Associated Press v. United States (1945)	AP member newspapers, through bylaws letting members block rivals from joining	To keep competitors from getting AP news	Sherman Act violation; the Court said the press has no antitrust immunity
NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware (1982)	Black residents of Claiborne County, Miss., boycotting white merchants from 1966	Equality and civil rights; no gain for themselves	Nonviolent boycott protected by the First Amendment, 8-0
FTC v. Superior Court Trial Lawyers (1990)	Private lawyers taking court appointments for indigent defendants in D.C.	Higher pay from the city	Illegal competitor boycott; a political message did not protect it
White House TV pool (2026)	ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox News and NBC, Sept. 21–24	CNN's return to its pool turn	Under DOJ investigation; no charges

In NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware, the court said states could not justify "a complete prohibition against a nonviolent, politically motivated boycott designed to force governmental and economic change." In the 1990 trial lawyers decision, lawyers stopped taking appointments until Washington raised their pay, and the city gave in. Justice John Paul Stevens drew the distinction: "the undenied objective of their boycott was an economic advantage for those who agreed to participate," while "Those who joined the Claiborne Hardware boycott sought no special advantage for themselves."

"This is not even in the same zip code of an antitrust violation."

Jonathan Kanter, Biden administration's assistant attorney general for antitrust

"It's literally freedom of speech," Kanter told CNN. The trial lawyers ruling has a reply. It refused to exempt boycotts with an "expressive component," since "Every concerted refusal to do business with a potential customer or supplier has an expressive component," and an exemption would "create a gaping hole in the fabric of those laws."

So the case turns on who gained. The lawyers wanted money. The networks wanted CNN back in its slot, and the stated cost of their plan was that Trump would lack major network coverage, a loss of pictures rather than a gain in revenue. On the court's own test, a short protest that sought nothing for the protesters points toward Claiborne. That is analysis; no court has ruled.

The case DOJ could actually make

The department's strongest argument is about the pool itself, not four days in September. In Associated Press v. United States, AP's bylaws let members "block its non-member competitors from membership," and Justice Hugo Black wrote: "The First Amendment affords not the slightest support for the contention that a combination to restrain trade in news and views has any constitutional immunity."

Apply that to five rivals that jointly supply video to competitors such as Newsmax and OAN. When the White House seated a non-member in CNN's place, the members declined to fill the slot. DOJ could frame that as members controlling who supplies the pool, closer to AP's membership rules than to a fee demand. And the trial lawyers ruling says a principled motive does not immunize a joint refusal.

This Antitrust Division has argued it before. On July 11, 2025, it filed a statement of interest in a suit alleging the Washington Post, the BBC, AP and Reuters colluded through the Trusted News Initiative. Announcing a 2025 filing on the 'marketplace of ideas', Assistant Attorney General Abigail Slater said that when companies "abuse their market power to block out and deplatform independent voices and protect legacy media, they harm competition." And when the White House took over choosing the pool from the White House Correspondents' Association on Feb. 25, 2025, press secretary Karoline Leavitt said "A select group of D.C.-based journalists should no longer have a monopoly over the privilege of press access at the White House."

That history cuts both ways. The market DOJ would call restrained is one the government now runs, and the refusal answered a ban a judge found likely unconstitutional. Kanter's sharpest line fits: the protest was "no more an antitrust violation than the reporters coming together to form the pool in the first place." Variety says the networks "have coordinated pool coverage for decades without any legal challenge to their process." There was one challenger. It was CNN.

A demand, not a charge

In theory DOJ could sue under Section 1, and a criminal violation carries fines up to $100,000,000 per corporation. Nothing suggests charges. And its theory must rest on the joint refusal: FTC guidance says one company declining to deal is generally lawful, while competitors agreeing to shun a target may be an illegal boycott.

The networks can fight the demands. In August 2025, U.S. District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan blocked an FTC demand to Media Matters, finding the group likely to prove "retaliatory animus"; a divided D.C. Circuit panel left the block in place. Bruce D. Brown of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press has sketched that argument.

"The reported investigation appears to be a pretext for seeking records from the networks about how they are covering daily White House events during a media ban the president himself put in place."

Bruce D. Brown, president, Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press

A weak case still costs. As legal commentator Joyce Vance put it, "the process is the punishment." DOJ is also defending Trump's ban in the suit by CNN, MS NOW and Politico, and a source told CNN the probe "may factor into" it. In June, the same division cleared the Paramount–Warner Bros. deal, a merger David Ellison's Skydance completed this past week; Ellison has said he backs CNN's lawsuit over the ban, Deadline reported.

Judge Kelly's order runs until Tuesday, Oct. 13, and he is expected to rule by then on a preliminary injunction. Whatever he decides, and whatever becomes of the antitrust theory, DOJ has asked for the networks' messages about covering Trump while CNN was locked out. The networks wrote them as protest. The government wants to read them as evidence.