Via Freedom Of The Press Foundation
Holding foreign regimes accountable for press freedom is essential. But this year, the U.S. needs to take a hard look in the mirror, too.
Since last year’s World Press Freedom Day, our U.S. Press Freedom Tracker has documented hundreds of press freedom violations in the United States, the equivalent of more than one per day. Taken together, these incidents are evidence of an unprecedented, coordinated assault on press freedom being led by the highest levels of our government.
From the streets of Minneapolis to the halls of the Pentagon, the Trump administration is dismantling the First Amendment right to gather and report the news.
The majority of press freedom incidents cataloged by the Tracker since last May 3 are of journalists being assaulted and arrested while covering protests.
Most reporters arrested at demonstrations have their charges dropped later. But not journalists Don Lemon, Georgia Fort, and Junn Bollman. They now face bogus charges under federal prosecution for engaging in obviously constitutionally protected reporting while covering a protest at a St. Paul, Minnesota, church in January.
They’re not the only journalists being prosecuted for covering anti-immigration enforcement protests in Minnesota. Photographer John Abernathy — who was pictured tossing his camera to another photographer to protect it, while being surrounded and arrested by federal agents at a different protest in a Minneapolis suburb last January — is also facing federal criminal charges.
Outside the context of protests, multiple federal agencies are also trying to redefine routine journalism as wrong or illegal.
Perhaps most notoriously, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth tried to ban reporters from the Pentagon unless they signed what amounts to a loyalty pledge promising not to ask sources for information. Even after a court said the ban (and a subsequent rewrite) was unconstitutional, the government continues to fight for the right to exclude reporters who aren’t interested in acting as Pentagon stenographers.
Former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and former Attorney General Pam Bondi have tried to chill reporting by accusing journalists of “doxxing” or fomenting violence against federal immigration agents by naming them or photographing them in public. They’ve threatened to prosecute CNN for reporting on an ICE-watching app and coerced app stores into removing that software, a clear violation of the Constitution.
At the FBI, Director Kash Patel launched a retaliatory “stalking” investigation into New York Times reporter Elizabeth Williamson because Williamson did her job: reaching out to Patel’s girlfriend Alexis Wilkins to ask for a comment on reporting that Patel was using government resources on Wilkins’ behalf. Even the Department of Justice thought that was too much, concluding there was no legal basis for the investigation of Williamson.
But perhaps no government official has done more to target journalism on Trump’s behalf than Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr. By threatening to punish broadcasters for reporting and editing news, and encouraging media mergers meant to benefit the Trump administration, Carr has shown he’s willing to trade the First Amendment (and whatever dignity he has left considering he wears a gilded bust of Trump as a lapel pin) for political points.
Waging war on whistleblowers
The Trump administration is also moving aggressively to shut down journalists’ relationships with their sources.
In January, the FBI raided the home of Washington Post journalist Hannah Natanson, the “federal government whisperer” who’d written about the hundreds of her confidential sources from within the government. When the agency asked a court for the search warrant allowing the raid, the government purposefully omitted any mention of the Privacy Protection Act of 1980, a federal law that prohibits such raids in almost all circumstances.
More recently, the DOJ used the Espionage Act to charge Courtney Williams, a former Army employee who spoke to reporter Seth Harp about sexual harassment and discrimination in the military. Like most Espionage Act cases involving reporters and sources, this case doesn’t seem to be about national security. It’s about hiding government misconduct by retaliating against journalists and sources who expose it.
A pattern of persecution
This is only the tip of the iceberg. We haven’t even gotten into the SLAPP lawsuits, the attacks on immigrant journalists, the threats to jail journalists who refuse to burn sources, the yanking of funding from public media, and so much more.
In other words, the U.S. is rapidly joining the ranks of the world’s worst press freedom offenders.
But it’s not too late to fight back.
Newsrooms can sue over press freedom violations and win. Lawmakers can reform the Espionage Act and Privacy Protection Act, and pass a federal shield law protecting journalists and their sources. Journalists can and should write and speak out about press freedom violations. The public can take action to demand that the Trump administration stop treating the First Amendment like a suggestion.
The United States can’t lead the world in defending press freedom on World Press Freedom Day when it’s actively dismantling it at home. It’s time to stop asking the Trump administration to respect the First Amendment. We need to use the courts, Congress, and the power of the people to force it.
See the exhibition Imagine A World Without Photojournalism
