Press Freedom

When Free Press is Gone

by


Article in Poynter by Ren LaForme, 6/3/25

Headline:  “Opinion | We’re tracking the rising threats to press freedom”

Subhead:  “Because the warning signs are no longer subtle”

“There’s a saying: Health is a crown the healthy wear that only the sick can see. Most of us don’t recognize the treasure of good health until it’s gone.

“I wonder whether, when the dust settles, America will feel the same about press freedom — a right our Founding Fathers valued so deeply that they made it the First Amendment. . . .”

Read the full article here:

https://www.poynter.org/commentary/2025/press-freedom-watch/

Writing Laws to Stifle Press

by


Article in Columbia Journalism Review by Jon Alsop, 6/3/25

Headline:  “The Insidious Spread of ‘Foreign Agent’ Laws Continues”

Subhead:  “Hungary and other nations are pushing a Russian-style crackdown on the press.”

“. . .Last month, Fidesz, Orbán’s party, introduced a bill, with the innocuous-sounding title ‘On the Transparency of Public Life,’ that essentially aims to legislate his rant. The bill would allow Hungary’s (decidedly less innocuous-sounding) ‘Sovereignty Protection Office’ to recommend the blacklisting of organizations, including news outlets, that receive funding from abroad and are deemed a threat to sovereignty—an incredibly broad designation that, per Politico, includes activities such as ‘influencing public opinion, promoting democratic debate, or challenging state-defined values like Christian culture and traditional family roles.’ . . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.cjr.org/the_media_today/insidious-spread-foreign-agent-laws-continues-hungary-orban-trump-fara.php

Barriers to Reporting

by


Article in Huffpost by Julia Frankel, 6/2/25

Headline: “Israel Bars Media From West Bank Villages On Tour Organized By Oscar Winners”

Subhead:  “The directors of “No Other Land,” a film about Israeli settler attacks on Palestinians in the territory, had invited journalists to interview the area’s residents.”

“Israeli soldiers on Monday barred journalists from entering villages in the West Bank on a planned tour organized by the directors of the Oscar-winning movie “No Other Land.”

“The directors of the film, which focuses on Israeli settler attacks on Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied territory, said they had invited the journalists on the tour Monday to interview residents about increasing settler violence in the area.

“In video posted on X by the film’s co-director, Yuval Abraham, an Israeli soldier tells a group of international journalists there is “no passage” in the area because of a military order. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/israel-bars-media-west-bank-palestinian-oscar-winners_n_683db860e4b095a13841143c

CBS – How Times Have Changed

by

Edward R. Murrow, 1962

Article in New York Times by James Poniewozik, 5/30/25

Headline: ” ‘Good Night, and Good Luck’ Remembers When TV Had a Conscience, and a Spine”

Subhead:  “A TV critic looks at George Clooney’s play about CBS News standing up to political pressure, even as its current ownership might succumb to it.”

“In the Broadway play ‘Good Night, and Good Luck,’ the CBS newscaster Edward R. Murrow (George Clooney) allows himself a moment of doubt, as his program ‘See It Now’ embarks on a series of reports on the anti-communist witch hunts of the 1950s.

“ ‘It occurs to me,’ he says, ‘that we might not get away with this one.’

“It is a small but important line. We know Murrow’s story — exposing the red-baiting demagoguery of Senator Joseph McCarthy — as history. And history, once set down on the page and stage, can seem inevitable.

“But Murrow’s success was not preordained. It required hard, exacting work. It required guts. It required journalists to risk personal ruin and some of them to experience it. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/30/arts/television/good-night-and-good-luck-cbs-paramount.html

Public Media Are Sueing

by


Article in The Hill by Dominick Mastrangelo, 5/30/25

Headline: “PBS sues Trump administration in wake of calls to strip funding”

“PBS is suing President Trump’s administration on First Amendment grounds, arguing the president is trying to pull funding the from the broadcaster because of editorial coverage he disagrees with.

“The suit filed Friday in federal court in Washington, D.C., accused the president of trying to “upend public television” and argues the law “forbids” him from pulling funding to it and other public broadcast outlets.

“PBS’s suit follows a similar lawsuit filed earlier this week by NPR. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://thehill.com/homenews/media/5326430-pbs-sues-trump/

FCC Commissioner Defends Press Freedom

by


Article in Free Press by Staff, 4/28/25

Headline:  “At Lively Public Forum, FCC Commissioner Gomez Rallies Angelenos in Defense of First Amendment Rights and a Free Press”

“On Wednesday, FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez took a forceful stand against government censorship and intimidation of U.S. media during a boisterous Los Angeles forum co-hosted by Free Press.

“ ‘I launched this First Amendment tour to bring attention to this administration’s campaign of censorship and control — and I want to be clear, this is an administration-wide campaign,’ Gomez said during the event. ‘Freedom of the press requires journalists that are able to do their job without interference from their corporate parents. We are not seeing that today because of the actions of this administration and it is so dangerous. We all need to understand what is happening and we need people to speak up and to push back. . .’

Read the full article at:

https://www.freepress.net/news/fcc-commissioner-gomez-rallies-angelenos-defense-first-amendment-rights

Domino Effect on Journalism

by

Article in Poynter by Angla Fu, 5/29/25

Headline:  “America’s top journalism schools may lose a generation of international talent”

Subhead:  “The Trump administration is pausing visa interviews for students and fellows while it drafts new vetting rules”

“Foreign media workers and students coming to the United States for journalism schools and fellowships could get caught up in the Trump administration’s pause on certain visa interviews.

“Secretary of State Marco Rubio instructed all American embassies and consulates Tuesday to stop scheduling student and exchange visitor visa interviews, Politico reported. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.poynter.org/educators-students/2025/foreign-journalism-students-visa-pause/

Can Student Journalists do Their Jobs?

by

Article in Poynter by Adelina Yankova, 5/27/25

Headline:  “Student reporters are under pressure to protect sources — and still tell the truth”

Subhead:  “As fear spreads on campuses, journalists face a new dilemma: How do you build trust when few are willing to be named?”

“Last December, Andrew Massie got a text from his roommate: He thought he had story for him. An hour later, Massie, who is a journalist at The Fordham Ram student newspaper, returned home to find several people waiting to talk. The ensuing three-month reporting journey led Massie to sift through documents and interview 26 people about alleged administrative negligence by a Fordham dean.

“Still, when the story was published in the Ram on March 5, it featured only two named sources.

“Most of the interviewees, who feared for their current jobs and future employment prospects, would only speak to Massie, the features editor of the Ram, under the condition of anonymity. In some cases, the interviews were fully off the record, meaning Massie had to confirm their testimony with others.

“Massie’s experience is increasingly common for student journalists across the country as they reckon with people’s hesitance to be named in stories. . .”

Read the full story here:

https://www.poynter.org/reporting-editing/2025/student-journalism-challenges-anonymous-sources-off-record/

Reporting a Hidden War

by

Article in Columbia Journalism Review by Nalova Akua, 5/27/25

Headline:  “The Hidden Toll of Reporting on the Sudanese Civil War”

Subhead:  “Local journalists say it often feels like belligerents are waging an undeclared war against the press.”

“In June 2023, Nader Shilkawi, a thirty-four-year-old journalist working with the Sudan Radio and Television Corporation, was returning home from a reporting trip when he was seized by members of a paramilitary group known as the Rapid Support Forces. The group—a party in a brutal civil war that has torn the country apart since April 2023—accused the reporter of working with the Sudanese army to monitor its movements. ‘I was subjected to torture in detention,’ Shilkawi said recently via a WhatsApp message. ‘I was beaten. I received threats.’

“He was eventually released, after three days of detention. But Shilkawi’s story is not so uncommon. The Sudanese civil war, now in its third year, has left more than 150,000 people dead and an estimated fourteen million more displaced. It has also quietly become one of the most dangerous conflicts in the world for journalists. . .”

Read the full story at:

https://www.cjr.org/news/journalism-reporters-sudan-civil-war.php

NPR Tuning Out Trump?

by


Article in Status News by Oliver Darcy, 5/27/25

Headline: “NPR Flips the Dial on Trump”

Subhead: “When Trump signed an order to defund NPR, the network faced a choice over how it would respond—but CEO Katherine Maher made one thing clear from the start: there would be no backroom negotiations.

“In the days following Donald Trump’s May 1 executive order to strip NPR of all federal funding, leaders at the public broadcaster began deliberating their options. But even before the network’s legal team got to work on the litigation, one decision had already been made. NPR chief executive Katherine Maher made clear that the outlet would not quietly negotiate with the White House—an approach other media companies have recently taken under immense political pressure.

“As an independent media organization,” Maher told me by phone Tuesday, “we wouldn’t go ahead and have that conversation because that would be negotiating on editorial principle.” . . .”

Read the full story here:

https://www.status.news/p/npr-sues-trump-funding-katherine-maher-interview

– – – – –

Article in AP by David Bauder, 5/27/25

Headline:  “NPR sues Trump administration over executive order to cut federal funding to public media”

“National Public Radio and three of its local stations sued President Donald Trump on Tuesday, arguing that his executive order cutting funding to the 246-station network violates their free speech and relies on an authority that he does not have.

Earlier this month, Trump instructed the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and federal agencies to cease funding for NPR and PBS, either directly or indirectly. The president and his supporters argue their news reporting promotes liberal bias and shouldn’t be supported by taxpayers.

Retaliation is Trump’s plain purpose, the lawsuit argues. It was filed in federal court in Washington by NPR and three Colorado entities — Colorado Public Radio, Aspen Public Radio and KUTE, Inc., chosen to show the system’s diversity in urban and rural areas.

“By basing its directives on the substance of NPR’s programming, the executive order seeks to force NPR to adapt its journalistic standards and editorial choices to the preferences of the government if it is to continue to receive federal funding,” Katherine Maher, NPR’s CEO, said Tuesday.

Read the full story here:

https://apnews.com/article/npr-trump-lawsuit-public-radio-f320314b30df6934238a5b6af47c5067