Press Freedom

First Amendment and Media?

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Article in Columbia Journalism Review by Sarah Grecy Gotfredsen, 4/10/25

Headline:  “Entry: Denied”

Subhead:  “The “intolerable risk to press freedom” posed by device searches at the border.”

“. . .In 2019, The Intercept documented how journalists covering the so-called migrant caravan faced ‘coordinated harassment’ from US and Mexican authorities. Through a series of interviews, the journalist Ryan Devereaux tells how members of the press were forced to turn over their notes, cameras, and phones while border officers interrogated them for information about activists working with members of the caravan. . .”

https://www.cjr.org/the_media_today/entry-denied-us-border-customs-device-unlock-search-journalists-detain.php

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Article in Fair by Janine Jackson, 4/10/25

Headline:  ” ‘This Is an All-Out War on the First Amendment’ “

Subhead:  “CounterSpin interview with Jessica González on Trump’s FCC”

“Janine Jackson:  ‘There are reasons that the FCC, the Federal Communications Commission, is an opaque entity for many people. The fact that there is a federal agency setting the terms for media companies’ operations conflicts with many Americans’ understanding of the press corps as a group of brave, independent individuals looking to tell the truth, and let the chips fall where they may.’

“There are, in fact, many community-supported, differently structured news outlets doing just that. . .”

https://fair.org/home/this-is-an-all-out-war-on-the-first-amendment/

Protect Your Sources

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Article in Poynter by Angela Fu, 4/8/25

Headline:  “Legal experts advise journalists to strengthen reporting security in the face of rising press restrictions”

Subhead:  “Journalists can protect their sources by maintaining good digital hygiene and being aware of security vulnerabilities, experts say”

“At a time when President Donald Trump’s administration has accelerated attacks on the press, accessing information and protecting sources might become more difficult for journalists, experts say.

” ‘Concerns about libel law and the protections from landmark Supreme Court case New York Times Co. v Sullivan have been exaggerated’, said New York Times deputy general counsel David McCraw and Center for Investigative Reporting general counsel Victoria Baranetsky. Instead, they advised journalists to take measures to secure their reporting material and be cognizant of the pressures they face in the current political climate. Their remarks came Monday during a Poynter webinar called ‘Safeguarding your journalism against legal threats. . .’

“Trump has already taken measures to curtail press access. His administration has laid off communications staff, reallocated dedicated office space in the Pentagon to conservative outlets, taken over the White House press pool and defunded global radio stations. Most notably, his administration has banned The Associated Press from accessing key White House spaces like the Oval Office. Members of his administration have also threatened to investigate leaks.

“Newsrooms may see more subpoenas seeking their communications and reporting material, McCraw warned. To that end, journalists should be cognizant of the documentation that they generate and keep. An unflattering private message to a colleague, for example, could be unearthed in court — as was the case earlier this year when a jury found CNN guilty of defaming a security contractor. . .”

https://www.poynter.org/reporting-editing/2025/trump-legal-threats-journalists-source-protection/

 

Can’t Ban the Free Press

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Article in The Guardian by Leonie Chao-Feng, 4/8/24

Headline:  “Judge orders Trump White House to lift access restrictions on Associated Press”

Subhead:  “Order restores journalists access to White House spaces while the news agency’s lawsuit moves forward”

“A US judge on Tuesday ordered the White House to restore full access to the Associated Press to presidential events, after the news agency was punished for its decision to continue to refer to the Gulf of Mexico in its coverage.

“The order from the US district judge Trevor McFadden, an appointee of Donald Trump, requires the White House to allow the AP’s journalists to access the Oval Office, Air Force One and events held at the White House.

“The White House “sharply curtailed” the AP’s access to media events with the US president after he renamed the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America” and the news agency did not follow suit, McFadden wrote in a 41-page decision. . .”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/08/judge-orders-white-house-restore-associated-press-access

Foreign Journalists in Danger

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Article in AP by Didi Tang, 4/5/25

Headline: “Foreign journalists at US-backed media fear being sent to repressive homelands after Trump’s cuts”

“After hiding in Thailand for seven years, two Cambodian journalists arrived in the United States last year on work visas, aiming to keep providing people in their Southeast Asian homeland with objective, factual news through Radio Free Asia.

But Vuthy Tha and Hour Hum now say their jobs and legal status in the U.S. are at risk after President Donald Trump recently signed an executive order gutting the government-run U.S. Agency for Global Media. The agency funds Radio Free Asia and other outlets tasked with delivering uncensored information to parts of the world under authoritarian rule and often without a free press of their own. . .”

“ ‘It fell out of sky,’ Vuthy, a single father of two small children, said through a translator about the Trump administration’s decision, which he says threatens to upend his life. I am very regretful that our listeners cannot receive the accurate news,’ Hour said, also through a translator.

“Both men said they’re worried about providing for their families and being allowed to stay in the U.S. They say it’s impossible to return to Cambodia, a single-party state hostile to independent media where they fear being persecuted for their journalistic work.”

https://apnews.com/article/radio-free-asia-voice-of-america-trump-084045acb927d5cc2ddc46b61d59a692

Press Freedom Essential!

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Article in Poynter by Ren LaForme, 4/2/25

Headline:  “Max Frankel on how news became the oxygen of our liberty”

Subhead:  “In a foreword written after 9/11, the late New York Times editor captured journalism’s essential role — and warned what happens when we forget it”

“. . .only honest and reliable news media could instruct the world in its vulnerability, summon Americans to heroic acts of rescue, and ignite the global search for meaning and response. Only trusted news teams could discern the nation’s anxiety, spread words of hope and therapy, and help to move us from numbing fear toward recovery.

Here, then, lies above all the ultimate demonstration of the danger that Americans invited when they lost their interest in the world beyond the self and in serious news coverage of those other realms. Another generation has been awakened, summoned to recognize that dependable news occupies a precious but vulnerable place in our society. . .”

“News is not neutral. Like literature, the most important news dwells on stories of conflict, on the rivalries and casualties of life. Yet while conflict is universal, so is the human desire to avoid and reduce it. And so news also serves the armies of reform and implicitly holds out hope and a faith in progress. . .”

Since a free and open society is, by definition, a constantly self-correcting organism, it is constantly nourished by news that exposes flaws and failures and so stimulates debate about how to overcome them. News is the enemy of certainty, and therefore of tyranny.

https://www.poynter.org/ethics-trust/2025/max-frankel-september-11-2001/

News is What They Make It

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Article in The Beast by William Vaillancourt

Headline:  “Jake Tapper on WH Signal Response: ‘Nothing Matters Anymore’ “

Subhead:  “Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt tried to wrap up the scandal, insisting that ‘this case has been closed.’  CNN’s Jake had more to say”

“Jake Tapper threw up his hands Monday in response to White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt declaring resolved the issue of top administration officials inadvertently revealing planned strikes in the Middle East to a journalist through a Signal group chat.

“Nothing matters anymore,” the CNN anchor said in a discussion with The Atlantic Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg, who wrote last Monday how he had been invited into the Signal chat earlier this month by National Security Adviser Mike Waltz.

“Leavitt told reporters earlier in the day that “this case has been closed here at the White House, as far as we are concerned”—despite no firings and no inspectors general from any government department launching an investigation into the shocking security lapse.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/cnns-jake-tapper-reacts-to-white-house-signal-response-nothing-matters-anymore/

How to Save The News

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A bronze sidewalk plaque on Library Way quotes Thomas Jefferson and features New York newspapers, Tuesday, Jan. 19, 2021 in New York. Jefferson is quoted, “Where the press is free, and every man is able to read, all is safe.” (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)

Article in Poynter by Amaris Castillo, 4/1/25

Headline:  “Concerned about press freedom? Here are some things you can do about it.”

Subhead:  “Democracy needs a free press, and a free press needs support — here’s how everyday people can help defend it.”

“Freedom of the press in the United States is legally protected by the First Amendment, which famously declares: ‘Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.’

“Nearly three-quarters U.S. adults say press freedom is extremely or very important to the well-being of society, according to a 2024 Pew Research Center survey. But there’s been grave concern about the state of press freedom for some time. A separate Pew survey from 2023 found that 57% of U.S. journalists reported feeling extremely or very concerned about potential restrictions on press freedoms.

“ ‘We are truly standing at a crossroads in which one of the five freedoms of the First Amendment is under unprecedented duress,’ said Ken Paulson, who directs the Free Speech Center at the College of Media and Entertainment at Middle Tennessee State University. ‘We’ve seen, for decades, attacks by politicians on news media of all sorts. And it’s part and parcel of the relationship between a free press and those in power, but what we’re seeing now is much more aggressive and involves the use of government power directly against journalism.’ . . .”

https://www.poynter.org/reporting-editing/2025/how-protect-press-freedom-support-journalism-first-amendment/

Investigation the Media “Investigator”

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Article in The Verge by Emma Roth, 4/1/25

Headline:  “House Democrats launch investigation into ‘bogus’ FCC probes”.

“In a letter to the FCC, Democrats on the Energy and Commerce Committee call out Chairman Carr’s ‘actions to target and intidimate’ media companies in violation of the First Amendment:

” ‘You have launched sham investigations into entities disfavored by President Trump, Elon Musk, and the Republican Party to censor journalists and news coverage. In the absence of actual agency authority and any real evidence of wrongdoing, your pursuit of these actions is clearly intended to punish and burden broadcasters and other media companies by inflicting incalculable reputational harm and excessive costs to defend themselves.’

“The Democrats are giving Carr until April 14th to respond to a series of questions about the FCC’s wave of investigations.”

https://www.theverge.com/news/641084/t

Media Roped?

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Article in Columbia Journalism Review by Jon Alsop, 3/31/25

Headline:   “The Tug-of-War Between Trump and the Press”

Subhead:  “The media is vulnerable to Trump’s attacks. But that doesn’t mean it’s powerless.”

“Eight days ago, David Bauder, a media reporter at the Associated Press, published a story listing the by now familiar ways in which Trump and his administration have put journalists “on their heels” after only two months back in power, checking off a barrage of lawsuits and rhetorical attacks, the “newly aggressive” posture of the Federal Communications Commission, the gutting of the US-funded overseas broadcaster Voice of America, and the White House banning Bauder’s own shop, the AP, from events after it refused to start referring to the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America” in the stenographic way Trump would like. . .”

” On an episode of the New York Times’ influential podcast The Daily, Jim Rutenberg outlined how Trump is not only undermining the press, but circumventing it, as alternative right-wing outlets and podcast bros furnish him with unprecedented levels of “media cheerleading and support.” (The episode’s title: “Nixon Dreamed of Breaking the Media. Trump Is Doing It.”) In Vanity Fair, Joel Simon situated Trump’s efforts to bend the media to his will in the wider context of growing authoritarianism in the US, and argued that “anticipatory obedience is rife” on the part of outlets from the Washington Post to ABC News. . . .”

https://www.cjr.org/the_media_today/trump_media_threats_power_ap_voa_npr.php

Buy the Media, Buy an Election

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Article in The Hill by Sarah Fortinsky, 3/30/25

Headline:  “Musk says he is giving out two $1 million checks to ‘get attention’ from ‘legacy media’ “

“Tech billionaire Elon Musk handed out oversized $1 million checks to two attendees of his town hall in Wisconsin on Sunday evening, saying the stunt is cheaper and more effective than paying for the same amount of media coverage.

“ ‘The reason for the checks is that it’s really just to get attention. It’s like, we need to get attention. And it’s somewhat inevitably, when I do this, these things. . . it causes the legacy media to, like, kind of lose their minds, and then they’ll run it on every news channel,’ Musk said on stage at the town hall, before giving out the large checks.”

“ ‘And I’m like, I couldn’t pay them to, it would cost, like, 10 times more… to get the kind of coverage that we get’  without distributing the checks, Musk said.”

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/5222859-musk-says-he-is-giving-out-two-1-million-checks-to-get-attention-from-legacy-media/