Monday, September 21, 2026

Journalists Find Their Balls

 

By Hubie and Bertie

Well, this only took six (cumulative) years. The networks have suspended pool coverage of the White House after Benedict Donald banned CNN, MS NOW, and POLITICO from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue on Friday. It's either a case of "About blankety-blank time" or "Too little, too late." (Probably a little of both.)

"This is to advise that, effective today, the TV pool will not be covering events designated as pool coverage of the President,” current TV pool chair Bryan Boughton wrote. "This follows the White House's position preventing CNN from fulfilling its assigned pool duties. There will be no replacement pool put in place."

Bad timing for Trump, if he was banking on getting images of his Monday trip to the United Nations on the airwaves. CNN was scheduled to serve as the television pool today, BWAAHAHAAHAA — providing video to the participating networks (ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox, yes, Fox). Don't these Trumpsters think any of these things through? Imagine how much more damage they'd do if they were competent.

This is a developing story, so we'll keep our paws on it. But meanwhile, we're willing to salute the networks for finally locating their spines (or other parts of their anatomy). Yes, it's a delicate balance between covering legitimately important stories — like the UN — and First Amendment rights, but the press has needed to push back on this authoritarian, antidemocratic crap for a long time. We cats PURR.

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