The Justice Department's antitrust probe into the TV networks that suspended pool coverage of President Trump has, sources say, come down to a single piece of camera equipment.
The Justice Department has ordered the White House press pool's single shared tripod broken into five competing tripods. The move follows a real antitrust probe into networks that suspended Trump pool coverage. Sources say the old tripod was seen sharing a charger.
The Justice Department on Saturday ordered the White House press pool to break up its one shared tripod into five rival tripods. Sources close to the situation say the tripod had been living as a single unit for nineteen years, and that nobody thought to ask whether that was legal.
The order lands days after the department told five major TV networks it would probe whether suspending pool coverage of President Trump violated antitrust law. The networks pulled the pool after the White House barred CNN, MS NOW and Politico. Variety and The New York Times both reported the probe, and both buried the tripod.
Insiders say that was a mistake, because the tripod is where this whole thing was always headed. Five networks, one camera, one angle, one lawn. If that is not a cartel, friends, then tell me what is.
"The American public deserves five separate shaky shots of the same door," said Deputy Assistant Attorney General Royce Pellingham, who leads the department's new Office of Camera Competition. "Right now they get one steady shot. That is not a free market. That is a monopoly with a lens cap."
Pellingham confirmed the five new tripods will stand in a row on the North Lawn, exactly where the old one stood, pointed at exactly the same spot. Each network must glare at the others. Collusion, he added, includes lending a battery.
"We are not telling networks what to film. We are telling them to film it alone, bitterly, and at their own expense."
Now for the part the networks do not want you to hear. Those close to the breakup say the old tripod had been seen in recent weeks at a hotel bar near Lafayette Square, sharing an outlet with a Politico laptop. Two people who were there describe the mood as "cozy." One says there was a shared charger. The department has not ruled out seizing the charger.
Network reaction has been brisk and, frankly, wounded. "We paid for a third of that tripod in 2007 and we have the receipt," said Dana Okonkwo-Birch, speaking for a coalition of the five outlets. "If the government wants it broken up, fine. But we get the middle leg."
Asked whether a separate tripod would improve coverage of the president, Okonkwo-Birch paused for a full nine seconds. "It will improve coverage of the other four tripods," she said. "We expect that to be the main story by Tuesday."
A fifth leg nobody claimed
Here is where it gets juicy. Pellingham's office has already ruled that any two tripods standing within nineteen inches of each other count as a merger. Lawn measurements begin Saturday at dawn. A department tape measure, sources say, has been assigned its own security detail.
The White House, for its part, had no comment on the tripods, the probe or the charger. A staffer wheeling a cart past the North Lawn would say only that the old tripod "seemed happy" and that she hoped it would "land somewhere that appreciates it." Sources tell me it already has an agent.
