President Donald Trump’s decision to bar several of his favorite “lamestream media” adversaries from the White House sparked fierce reactions across the political and media worlds last week.
By Thursday, the uproar had become difficult to follow through the celebratory mood in liberal newsrooms, after a federal judge ordered the White House to temporarily restore press access for journalists from CNN, MS NOW and Politico.
Now that the initial outrage has subsided, however, it is worth considering an uncomfortable possibility: America—and the media—may have been distracted once again.
Since the rise of MAGA, Trump has repeatedly demonstrated his ability to create controversies that send reporters racing after short-lived scandals while more consequential issues receive less attention.
To be fair, Trump did not invent the tactic. But he has refined it into an art.
The expression “wag the dog” entered modern political language through the 1997 film of the same name, which portrayed a Washington spin doctor inventing a war in Albania to divert attention from a presidential sex scandal. The phrase gained renewed relevance when President Bill Clinton was accused of ordering US military strikes to shift attention away from the escalating Monica Lewinsky scandal.
I previously worked as an anchor at Fox News and still maintain friendships and sources inside the network’s Manhattan headquarters. They tell me there were more than a few knowing laughs when Trump announced on Friday—apparently without warning—that he was banning outlets he accused of reporting “fiction and lies.”
Melissa Francis, a former Fox News anchor, says she still has friends and sources at the network’s Manhattan headquarters.
Trump’s confrontation with the news media prompted strong opinions across the political spectrum.
Why Fox News stood with rivals against Trump’s media ban
At least one Fox News veteran I spoke with immediately understood the difficult position facing the network.
No news organization—not even Fox News—could stand by while a president targeted fellow journalists.
The network knows how quickly it could become the next target.
In October 2009, President Barack Obama’s Treasury Department attempted to exclude Fox News from a series of interviews with Kenneth Feinberg, whom the administration had appointed to oversee the distribution of relief funds after the 2008 financial crisis.
ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN refused to participate unless Fox was included. Treasury reversed course within hours, allowing Fox to take part in the interviews.
That history helps explain why Fox News, when CNN, MS NOW and Politico were targeted, had little choice but to stand with its competitors and decline to cover Trump’s event.
Fox News contributor Ari Fleischer responded quickly on social media: “I agree with POTUS that several media outlets covering the WH are biased and unfair… Banning them from the WH is not the solution… Challenge liberal reporters. Argue and defeat them. Don’t ban them. Or one day they’ll ban us.”
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Bill Clinton faced accusations that he ordered US military strikes to divert attention from the growing Monica Lewinsky scandal during his presidency.
Fox News viewers furious over show of solidarity with rival networks
Fox News anchor Jacqui Heinrich, who serves as president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, wrote: “The Constitution protects the freedom of the press from government interference.”
Many Fox News viewers were unmoved by the temporary alliance. Still angry over the cancellation of Trump ally Maria Bartiromo’s show, they saw the network’s decision as part of a broader pattern. “Fox News pulled out of the White House Press Pool in solidarity with CNN, MSNOW and Politico which were banned from the White House. This is the same Fox News who just fired Maria Bartiromo for trying to report the news,” one viewer posted on X.
Yet few appeared to recognize the strategic advantage Trump may have gained—a classic “briar patch” moment in which the media believed it had seized the initiative while playing directly into his hands.
By acting together, news organizations denied Trump coverage of his arrivals and departures at precisely the moment he had no apparent interest in answering their questions.
So what was the week’s most important story?
It was a United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York, where Trump defended waging an unpopular war against Iran as his party confronted potentially devastating midterm losses with fewer than 40 days to go.
Rather than pressing Trump on the issues Americans care about most—including soaring prices at the pump—the media voluntarily stepped back and gave him the breathing room he urgently needed.
Many Fox News viewers reacted angrily to the network’s temporary solidarity with rival outlets. Some connected it to the cancellation of Trump ally Maria Bartiromo’s show, pictured interviewing Trump on April 14.
White House promotes its own news platform during media dispute
The administration’s response offered further evidence of how useful the dispute was to Trump’s team: It provided an opening to promote the White House’s own news platform, while encouraging Americans to turn away from traditional cable news.
“Get real-time updates and live events streamed DIRECTLY to your phone. No noise. Just the news that matters most – straight from the Trump Administration,” the White House posted on X.
The more cynical interpretation is that Trump was not the only beneficiary of the confrontation.
CNN, MS NOW and Politico gained a platform to denounce what they described as an assault on press freedom.
The apparent loser was Fox News, which found itself defending networks it frequently attacks as unreliable and, in the process, appeared to be in an awkwardly weakened position.
Somewhere, Maria Bartiromo may well be laughing.
