#press-freedom

#press-freedom

Attorney General Pam Bondi said the Justice Department would resume seizing reporters' phone records to find leakers. In April, Bondi rescinded former Attorney General Merrick Garland's policy restricting federal prosecutors from forcing journalists to reveal their sources. Zoom in: According to the Washington Post, Natanson was at her Virginia home when agents arrived. The FBI warrant said the search was part of an investigation into a Maryland system administrator accused of "accessing and taking home classified intelligence reports," per the affidavit cited by the Post.

Trump has won some sizable settlements in cases legal scholars had dismissed as largely lacking in merit. But as media scholars, we believe prevailing in court is not necessarily his primary goal. Instead, Trump appears to use lawsuits as a strategic weapon designed to silence his enemies and critics - who sometimes seem to be one and the same in his eyes.

To say press freedoms in the U.S. have taken a knock during the first year of Donald Trump's second term would be a gross understatement. Perhaps the most glaring example is the Department of Defense's new policy requiring journalists covering the Pentagon to sign a pledge promising not to use any information that hasn't been explicitly authorized. But the Trump administration's attacks on a free press have also included other tactics, like the effort to dismantle Freedom of Information Act processes across federal departments.

On the other hand, US media organizations are also facing tremendous pressure from the Trump administration and from Donald Trump personally, who has used a combination of frivolous defamation suits and weaponized regulatory agencies to extract vast sums from outlets that publish coverage he does not like and threaten the licenses of broadcasters who host voices critical of his movement.

"In national news, when we cover people who aren't technically in power, it is... often as people who are affected by the decisions of the people who are in power," Maddow said. "But if we are serious about doing this work in a democracy and for a democracy, that categorization is backwards. Because in a democracy, the controlling force, the real power, ultimately is with the people. And when the people are expressing themselves politically - which means peacefully - they are telling power what it can do and what it cannot do."

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

In his remarks to the U.K. public, the host of Jimmy Kimmel Live! accused President Donald Trump, whom he called King Donny the VIII, of wanting to shut me up because I don't adore him in the way he likes to be adored. Kimmel celebrated his return to the airwaves, declaring, We won, the president lost and now I'm back on the air every night.

The year is 2029. President Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, having spent years raging against Fox News as a propaganda organ whose very operation is illegal, has found a pressure point to control it. She enables its sale to owners who are friends of hers, and whose business depends on regulatory favors she has made a practice of doling out to allies. As the new editor in chief of Fox News, the owners install Tim Miller, a skeptic of conservatism who has never previously worked in television news.

The Israeli parliament has approved an extension of a law which allows the shutdown of foreign media outlets over national security grounds for an additional two years. The bill, which replaces temporary legislation passed last April, includes several amendments aimed at eliminating judicial oversight. It can now be applied even if Israel is not under a state of emergency. In May 2024, Israel shut down Al Jazeera operations in the country, weeks after the law was passed by the Knesset.

After waiting four years to return to the White House, President Donald Trump did not hesitate. Congratulations from foreign leaders were still pouring in on Inauguration Day when Trump signed his first directive. That day, he issued a raft of executive orders, proclamations and pardons that remade vast swaths of public policy and upended lives around the globe. Among those affected by his actions were journalists.

Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging. At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

Downing Street's director of communications, Tim Allan, unveiled the plan on Thursday without consulting the group of political journalists known as the lobby who traditionally attend briefings twice a day to question the prime minister's spokesperson. Allan said the government would be reducing the briefings to one a day, and would sometimes replace the single briefing with a press conference. Held at 9 Downing Street, lobby briefings are on the record but not broadcast.

The Federal Communications Commission chair, Brendan Carr, admitted at a Senate hearing on Wednesday that there had been a political sea change and he no longer viewed the FCC as an independent agency. Commissioners, he says, serve at the pleasure of the president. In his case, that president is Donald Trump, whose face Carr wears as a lapel pin, whose agenda he loudly embraces, and who often publicly demands that Carr censor his critics, including revoking their broadcast licenses.

Some of these attacks will be familiar: We've seen how litigation warfare can take down entire newsrooms, and how regulatory threats ("nice merger you got there") can cause CEOs to cower. But there are plenty of other tools in the toolbox. We should not be surprised if the first (and perhaps the second or third) prosecution of a U.S. journalist under the Espionage Act begins in 2026, or if the administration includes a few journalists among the "extremists" holding "anti-American views"

If 2025 was the year the world woke up to democratic backsliding, 2026 may be the year journalism decides whether it will face that crisis alone or survive it together. Around the globe, authoritarians have learned to use the law to criminalize dissent through courts that perform an apparent due process while they dismantle it. The new authoritarian playbook includes a captured judiciary, economic suffocation of independent outlets, media capture and the slow erasure of collective memory.

Referring to the European Media Freedom Act (EMFA), the Commission said Hungary "fails to comply with requirements relating to the public service media," adding that it, "does not comply with provisions regarding interference in the work of journalists and media outlets in Hungary, restricting their economic activities and editorial freedom." A statement on the Commission's website said, "Hungarian law does not offer an adequate protection of journalistic sources and confidential communications, nor effective judicial protection when these rights are breached."

The New York Times, attacked by President Donald Trump for reporting about his physical condition, said on Wednesday that it wouldn't be deterred by "false and inflammatory language" that distorts the role of a free press. The president had posted on his Truth Social platform that he believed it was "seditious, perhaps even treasonous" for the Times and other media outlets to do "FAKE" reports on his health.

The first year of the second Trump administration has already seen new heights in unlawful efforts to cut off access to information (and to punish newsrooms for doing their job). From unconstitutionally booting the Associated Press from the Oval Office because of its editorial stance, to creating unlawful press access policies at the Pentagon, the administration is desperately seeking to choke coverage it doesn't like. The currents shaping these efforts are only likely to intensify in 2026.

President Donald Trump attacks the press on pretty much a daily basis, lashing out at reporters who ask questions he doesn't like. He told one reporter to be quiet while calling her "piggy." He has called other reporters "nasty," "stupid," "ugly," "obnoxious" and terrible at their jobs. Often, he focuses on women. But no one is seemingly spared from his wrath when he gets a tough question.

The club notified the Guardian late on Saturday to say it felt it would be inappropriate for journalists and photographers from the Guardian to be accredited to matches at the Amex, starting from Sunday's game against West Ham. The allegations about Bloom, a billionaire who has made his money from gambling, have raised questions from MPs. Dawn Alford, the chief executive of the Society of Editors, said the ban was deeply concerning.

We'll protect the people who shine a light on corruption in the first place, the journalists and activists who shield the public's right to know, he said in his speech at the summit. By stopping the powerful from using abusive lawsuits so-called Slapps' to intimidate reporters, silence investigations, and bury the truth under a mountain of legal threats. Because sunlight is always the best disinfectant.