Freedom of the Press

Reporters covering protests in the United States have been shot with crowd-control munitions, sprayed with tear gas, hit with cars, and physically attacked by both law enforcement and demonstrators.

So it makes sense that many journalists wear personal protective equipment like helmets, goggles, and gas masks at demonstrations, and that organizations like Reporters Without Borders offer grants to buy PPE that can reduce reporters’ chances of being hurt or even killed while doing their jobs.

What doesn’t make sense is when the government tries to stop reporters from taking those basic safety precautions.

Yet across the country, jurisdictions are banning safety gear at public protests. Officials often justify these policies in the name of public safety, for example by arguing that masks make it difficult to identify people who commit crimes at demonstrations. But many make no exceptions for members of the press, who pose no threat and face severe risk simply for doing their jobs.

In Newark, New Jersey, journalists covering the protests outside of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center at Delaney Hall have recently reported being turned away by police for carrying gas masks or bags that they need to hold PPE.

Other places bar protective equipment at protests by law, such as Modesto, California, where an ordinance that prohibits a wide range of PPE, including goggles, helmets, and gas masks, is currently being challenged in court.

These bans are dangerous, most importantly to journalists’ physical safety. But they also harm the public’s right to know. When reporters can’t safely remain at a protest, the public loses access to independent documentation about what happened there.

PPE is ‘the only reason I’m alive’

Journalist and writer Linda Tirado lost her left eye and suffered a traumatic brain injury after being shot by a foam round while covering a protest in Minneapolis in 2020. The city later paid $600,000 to settle a lawsuit she brought over excessive use of force.

Tirado credits the protective equipment she wore that day with saving her life. “The only reason I am alive is that I was wearing goggles that I had sourced, I was wearing a respirator that I had sourced,” Tirado told me when we spoke recently.

Half a decade later, journalists covering demonstrations continue to face similar risks. While covering a protest in Los Angeles in 2025, filmmaker and photojournalist Michael Nigro was shot in the head with a crowd-control munition, leaving a mark on his protective helmet, which was labeled on both sides with the word “PRESS.”

“These less-lethal munitions are sometimes lethal,” he said. “You can get hit in the eye; I could lose eyesight.”

Reporter and photojournalist Wali Khan expressed similar concerns about an incident last September when he was shot with crowd-control munitions by federal officers while covering protests outside an ICE facility in Broadview, Illinois. Khan was wearing impact goggles, a ventilator set, and a helmet when he was hit. Without his PPE, he said, he believes he could have been “partially blinded.”

Helmets and goggles aren’t the only equipment journalists rely on. Respirators and gas masks can also be critical when law enforcement deploys chemical agents at protests. Lexis-Olivier Ray, a reporter for L.A. Taco, has covered multiple protests around California. He often wears a full-face gas mask to mitigate the impacts of chemical irritants.

“There’s a big question mark” about the side effects of tear gas, Ray said. Even with a mask, he still has concerns about the impact on his health from tear gas that seeps through the mask or touches his skin.

Threats beyond law enforcement

Protective equipment can also help reporters defend themselves against threats that don’t come from law enforcement.

Documentarian Rocky Romano learned that firsthand while covering a protest in California in 2022. Romano was wearing a helmet when he was violently struck on the head by a man wielding what he described as a “tire checker” baton.

“He just doesn’t hit me. He hits me as hard as you can hit somebody with that weapon, like he must have played baseball or something,” Romano said.

Romano believes that his helmet saved him from more serious injuries, including death or mental impairment. “I can’t imagine taking that hit without a protective helmet between my head and the weapon. It would have been devastating,” he said.

PPE allows journalists to continue reporting

But protective equipment does more than prevent or mitigate injuries to journalists; it also allows the press to continue reporting when demonstrations become dangerous. Without gas masks, helmets, goggles, and other equipment, some reporters say they may miss out on documenting newsworthy events for the public.

For Nigro, protective equipment has made it possible to go places that he may otherwise be forced to avoid. Wearing a respirator and gas mask, for instance, allowed him to “go into the scrum” to document what was happening during the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Protective equipment is also essential because members of the press may be specifically targeted by law enforcement. “Sometimes the press badge is also a bull’s-eye,” Nigro explained. “They still come out on horseback with batons, with gas, and pepper balls and less-lethal munitions, and they’re firing directly and teeing up on us,” he added. That’s despite court orders prohibiting officers from attacking the press at protests.

“I’m just trying to mitigate any kind of bodily harm and make sure that the story is told,” Nigro said. “We need to be protected to be able to make sure that we document history, for now, and for the future.”

Ray also credited protective equipment for helping him do his job while covering a protest outside of the Metropolitan Detention Center in Los Angeles earlier this year. Federal agents, he said, used large amounts of chemical irritants on the crowd. “I was able to stay and report on all that, and if I didn’t have a gas mask, it would have been impossible,” Ray explained.

Similarly, Khan said that his gas mask is essential. “My pictures are so much better because of it,” he said. “That’s like the most important part of my kit.” Khan, however, was among the journalists recently barred by officers from bringing a gas mask to cover protests at Delaney Hall.

‘A ticking time bomb’

Restricting PPE at protests, then, makes it harder for journalists to keep the public informed and makes an already dangerous job even riskier.

“It just seems like a ticking time bomb, where eventually something bad is going to happen,” said Ray. “Someone’s going to get shot in the eye, or shot in the head, or something like that.”

“I think it’s incredibly dangerous to expect that journalists would put themselves in these situations without being able to protect themselves,” he added.

For Tirado, the concern extends beyond journalists. She noted that many protesters also suffered severe injuries at the same Minneapolis demonstration where she was injured in 2020. “The First Amendment,” Tirado said, “does not distinguish between a citizen and a journalist.”

“I managed to survive,” Tirado said. “But that is down specifically to the PPE. If I hadn’t had it, I’d be dead right now.”

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Washington, D.C., June 8, 2026 — Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) filed a federal Freedom of Information Act lawsuit today against the U.S. Department of Justice to uncover whether the agency is systematically misrepresenting the law and hiding statutory press protections from federal judges so that it can secure search warrants against journalists.

The lawsuit, filed with assistance from Free Information Group, follows the DOJ’s failure to disclose records regarding the unprecedented Jan. 14 FBI raid on Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson’s home. These include whether the agency has adopted an internal practice of hiding from magistrate judges the existence of the Privacy Protection Act of 1980 — which outlaws raids on newsrooms and journalists’ homes — to evade judicial scrutiny during leak investigations.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Gordon D. Kromberg previously admitted he knew of the PPA, but claimed he was following “department policy” by omitting it during the Natanson warrant process, a move that prompted FPF to file a formal bar complaint against him.

In February, a federal judge blocked the government from searching Natanson’s devices, stating the DOJ’s choice to withhold information about the PPA from the court “seriously undermined the Court’s confidence in the government’s disclosures.”

Magistrate Judge William Porter also placed the search in a larger pattern of retaliation against the press and of “purging employees perceived as disloyal” at DOJ, the Department of Defense, and the Department of Homeland Security.

“The Department of Justice’s decision to hide controlling federal law from a court to execute a midnight raid on a journalist’s home is a terrifying overreach that threatens the core of investigative journalism,” said Seth Stern, chief of advocacy for FPF. “By burying the Privacy Protection Act, the DOJ circumvented explicit statutory safeguards designed to protect reporters and their sources from administrative intimidation.”

“The DOJ’s flagrant disregard for press freedom is compounded by the administration’s attack on transparency and disregard for FOIA,” said Lauren Harper, FPF’s Daniel Ellsberg chair on government secrecy. “To date, the DOJ has failed to provide a single document, forcing us to go to court to access this urgent information.”

“The DOJ’s actions during the search of Hannah Natanson’s home, especially its misrepresentations to the judge, set a dangerous precedent. The public deserves to know whether this is just a one-time omission, or if it is the agency’s official policy to hide relevant law from judges,” said Ginger Quintero-McCall, a partner at Free Information Group.

Read the complaint here.

Please contact us if you would like further comment.

Dear Friend of Press Freedom:

Who gets to decide who’s a journalist? Police in New Jersey say it’s up to them. We disagree. Read on for more on that, plus the need for surveillance reform in light of President Donald Trump’s pick for intelligence chief, and what the murder of “60 Minutes” says about the Ellisons’ attempts to buy CNN parent company Warner Bros.

NJ police to journalists: Papers please

This week, our U.S. Press Freedom Tracker has been working to verify at least 40 assaults by federal and local law enforcement on journalists near an immigration detention facility in Newark, New Jersey known as Delaney Hall, where reporters are covering an ongoing hunger strike by detainees and related protests.

As Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) Deputy Director of Advocacy Adam Rose wrote in The Guardian, New Jersey police seem to think they’re empowered to unilaterally decide who is a journalist entitled to First Amendment protections — and to violate the rights of anyone who doesn’t satisfy their arbitrary criteria.

Press rights don’t simply protect a chosen class of people. They protect the act of informing the public, Rose writes. “If an officer can point at [someone] and say they are not press, the first amendment ceases to have meaning.”

• Read more

New intelligence chief could be catastrophic for press and privacy

Trump’s new pick for director of national intelligence, Bill Pulte, is stunningly unqualified. And when it comes to press freedom and the public’s right to know, it’s terrifying to think what he could do in his new role.

The DNI oversees compliance with Section 702 of FISA, a law intelligence agencies have exploited to search countless Americans’ phone calls, emails, and texts without a warrant, including journalists. There’s no telling how Pulte could abuse these surveillance powers at Trump’s behest.

Congress is currently debating whether to renew Section 702, and it’s more important than ever to tell them not to reauthorize the law without major reforms. “Anyone who votes in favor of renewal with Pulte now in place … cannot seriously claim to care even one little bit about the Constitution,” FPF Executive Director Trevor Timm said in a new video.

• Watch more

Don’t mess with Scott Pelley

Veteran “60 Minutes” journalist Scott Pelley didn’t appreciate five of his colleagues being fired in a single day, and he didn’t keep his feelings to himself. Pelley told the show’s new executive producer, Nick Bilton, that CBS News Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss was brought in to “kill” the storied newsmagazine and that she did exactly that.

He soon got fired for speaking the truth. But it’s also important to remember who brought Weiss in — Trump’s buddy David Ellison, who bought CBS after promising the Trump administration he’d give the news division a MAGA makeover. Now, the Ellisons want Trump’s approval to buy CNN and HBO’s parent company, Warner Bros.

We issued a statement along with a coalition of press freedom organizations about how what we’re seeing at CBS is sure to repeat at CNN if the Warner Bros. acquisition proceeds. And everyone from former CBS Evening News anchor Dan Rather to legendary Pentagon Papers lawyer James Goodale to former “60 Minutes” journalist Lowell Bergman — portrayed by Al Pacino in “The Insider” — has added their name to our letter opposing the merger.

• Read more

VPNs protect press freedom

Utah recently became the first state to enact a limited ban on virtual private networks to enforce its online age verification law, and lawmakers elsewhere are considering following suit.

That’s a problem for press freedom. FPF Deputy Director of Digital Security Dr. Martin Shelton and Senior Advocacy Adviser Caitlin Vogus recently wrote about how journalists use VPNs to protect themselves and their sources. Give it a read and then share it the next time you hear someone suggest we should restrict VPNs.

• Read more

First Amendment scholar Matthew Schafer discusses the press freedom legislation we urgently need, from the PRESS Act to protect source confidentiality to Espionage Act reform to stop criminalization of newsgathering.

“It’s rare for anything other than disingenuous spin and outright lies to come out of the Pentagon’s press office these days, so it’s hard to imagine what basis they have to call the space classified,” said FPF Chief of Advocacy Seth Stern.

Trump’s planned presidential library is “a shrine to the story that he wants to tell,” not an archive of presidential records, Lauren Harper, FPF’s Daniel Ellsberg chair on government secrecy, explained.

This is not how it works. Requests for secret court proceedings should be met with extreme constitutional scrutiny, not rubber stamps.

Journalists who have fought back against the Trump administration’s censorship have almost all prevailed, and this lawsuit should be another winner. It’s important that news outlets don’t take these attacks lying down.

If Israel believes its actions can withstand scrutiny, it should let journalists report freely instead of blacklisting foreign reporters, shutting them out from Gaza, and killing Palestinian journalists.

A stunning account from journalist Michael Nigro, who was among the first to reveal the Trump administration’s strategy of arresting immigrants at 26 Federal Plaza in New York City.

Indiana University must act on its student media task force’s recommendations after it restricted the print content of the Indiana Daily Student and fired the student media director.

Journalists should be able to tell the public what Penn State’s trustees actually think. Silencing criticism and dissent is how problems stay hidden.

Dear Friend of Press Freedom:

The fight for the free press is being waged on multiple fronts. This week: media mergers meant to please Trump, search warrants targeting journalists, government gag orders, and Catherine Herridge’s battle to protect confidential sources. Read on for more.

Journalists stand up for their independence

This week Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) led an open letter from current and former journalists and journalism professors sounding the alarm on the proposed Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery merger. Paramount CEO David Ellison has shown that he’s eager to throw the press under the bus to curry favor with the Trump administration.

We also held a press conference during which journalists and documentarians Kara Swisher, Jim Acosta, Katie Phang, Laura Poitras — who is also an FPF board member — and Geeta Gandbhir spoke out against the threat of corporate collusion with the government to censor the news. They don’t want a CBS repeat if Ellison takes over Warner holdings like CNN and HBO.

Neither does Sharyn Alfonsi, one of five journalists fired from “60 Minutes” yesterday, and one of nearly 250 signatories of our letter.

• Read more

Failed Don Lemon and Georgia Fort warrants expose attack on press

A federal judge twice rejected search warrant applications for the YouTube accounts of journalists Don Lemon and Georgia Fort, according to court records unsealed this week. Federal prosecutors sought the warrants in connection with the spurious criminal cases they’re pursuing against Lemon and Fort for covering a protest at a church in St. Paul, Minnesota.

FPF Senior Advocacy Adviser Caitlin Vogus — who also wrote about the warrants in The Guardian — said in a statement: “These failed search warrants are what happens when incompetent prosecutors pursue political vendettas instead of justice.”

• Read more

Trump wants to silence whistleblowers with NDAs

The Washington Post reported that the Trump administration is planning a broad, government-wide nondisclosure agreement to combat leaks to the press.

FPF Daniel Ellsberg Chair on Government Secrecy Lauren Harper said in a statement that the proposal “would kneecap whistleblower protections, undermine the First Amendment, and wrongly inhibit the public’s right to know.” She added, “It comes at a time when agency watchdogs are sidelined, FOIA officials are being fired, and leaks to the press … are being demonized and prosecuted.”

• Read more

New ruling highlights need for federal shield law

The latest decision in journalist Catherine Herridge’s legal fight over confidential sources highlights how fragile the reporter-source privilege remains in the absence of a federal shield law.

On May 22, a federal appeals court refused to reconsider its previous order forcing Herridge to identify her confidential sources, and it asked the public to accept its decision without immediate access to the court records we need to fully understand it.

The best solution to this mess is for Congress to provide clear, strong protection against compelled disclosure of journalists’ sources by passing a shield law like the PRESS Act.

• Read more

How a $16 million Paramount bribe previewed a $1.8 billion slush fund

President Donald Trump has once again hijacked the court system to further his corruption. He purportedly “settled” litigation with his own Department of Justice in exchange for a $1.8 billion slush fund to compensate political allies.

But before the DOJ facilitated Trump laundering his self-dealing through the courts, Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr helped Trump shake down Paramount to settle a frivolous lawsuit to clear the regulatory path for its merger with Skydance.

As FPF Chief of Advocacy Seth Stern explained, the Washington, D.C. Bar could have put a stop to it then by disciplining Carr pursuant to FPF’s complaint, but they chickened out. Now we see the consequences.

• Read more

Press freedom threats at the World Cup

Arrests of noncitizen journalists during Trump 2.0 are fueling concerns that the United States may not be a safe place to report for the thousands of foreign reporters expected to travel here to cover the 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup starting in June.

Our U.S. Press Freedom Tracker’s West Coast reporter, Briana Erickson, analyzed Tracker data and spoke to journalists about the attacks on the press that are fueling those concerns.

• Read more

Stern discussed FPF’s recent attorney disciplinary complaint against Florida Judge Jeffrey Kuntz for failing to recuse himself from Trump’s frivolous case against the Pulitzer Prize Board while seeking a judicial nomination from his administration.

For more on the World Cup and the threats facing journalists, check out FPF Chief of Editorial Kirstin McCudden’s interview with Erickson.

The ever-growing surveillance state is insatiable and poses unique challenges for reporters and their sources. Read about the new coalition, of which FPF is a member, and explore ways to fight back.

The detention of yet another journalist for covering a protest is more evidence that the Los Angeles Police Department won’t learn to respect the First Amendment and journalists’ rights until courts make them.

Thank goodness the First Amendment Foundation plans to take this new law aimed at stifling dissent in Florida to court.

White House access now mostly means front row seats to lies and insults. Journalists should skip the photo ops and dig into the administration’s misconduct, with or without access.

Good to see a news executive realize that fighting back against the Trump administration’s attacks on the free press isn’t optional. “Rights are just ink on paper unless they’re exercised.”

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

A group of award-winning journalists and documentarians expressed strong opposition to the proposed merger between Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery during a press conference today, citing the threat the deal poses to journalism and American democracy.

Journalists Kara Swisher, Jim Acosta, and Katie Phang along with Emmy-winning documentary filmmakers Laura Poitras and Geeta Gandbhir spoke at the event, hosted by Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF), Democracy Defenders Fund, International Documentary Association, Future Film Coalition, and Free Press.

The 2026 News & Documentary Emmy Awards, which begin tonight, celebrate achievements that wouldn’t be possible without press freedom and editorial independence. But, as the speakers discussed, Paramount CEO David Ellison has a track record of throwing those fundamental American principles under the bus to curry favor with the Trump administration, harming the press, the public, and Paramount itself. Case in point, today news broke that Paramount-owned CBS News would not renew the contract of journalist Sharyn Alfonsi, who resisted censorship of her “60 Minutes” story on torture of Venezuelan migrants.

“I think what’s happening right now is pretty dangerous,” said Acosta. “To essentially announce the departure of Sharyn Alfonsi from 60 Minutes is a very in-your-face move by some people who don’t care very much about the First Amendment.” Acosta added, “Folks need to use a little bit of their imagination here to recognize what may be coming down the pike” with a “strange oligarchical empire … attempting to do state media.”

“There’s a feeling that the wall has come down between editorial independence and corporate interests,” said Swisher. “They’re not doing it for economics. The math doesn’t math. You think Elon Musk bought Twitter to make money? These people are rich beyond all possible wealth. You have to really be thinking about what’s the actual game here, and the actual game is influence, and to take corporate interests and align them with editorial.”

Phang added that in a world where the government dictates who owns the media, “editorial independence will be a thing of the past, and what you’ll have is no one capable of being able to hold power to account.”

“Consolidation of media is bad for the public, it’s bad for creators, it’s bad for the public’s right to know,” said Poitras, who also serves on FPF’s board of directors. “The government has always tried to silence and censor the press, and the job of the press and the journalist is to be adversarial to power … the interests of corporations are entirely different [from] what is good for the press,” which, she explained, leads to capitulation by conglomerates faced with government pressure.

Gandbhir highlighted an often-overlooked issue: The proposed merger’s impact on news archives. “Many of us documentary filmmakers depend on access to archives to make our films, and specifically, the CNN archive holds over 4 million assets, spanning 45-plus years of global news, wars, elections, and political events. And, the CBS archive adds to that years of network television programming. And folding these two massive archives, two of the four major U.S. news archives, under the control of one entity, who has shown themselves to be active in editorial suppression, is a grave threat to documentary filmmakers,” she explained.

FPF also released an open letter yesterday signed by over 200 current and former journalists, documentarians, journalism professors, and rights organizations. The letter elaborates on the dangers of allowing the administration to steer media companies to stooges and oligarchs who have shown a willingness to censor the news — and tank news companies — to further their own interests. Notable signers include Sam Donaldson, SE Cupp, and Mehdi Hasan, as well as Acosta, Phang, and Poitras, among many others. FPF plans to continue collecting signatures.

FPF Chief of Advocacy Seth Stern said: “The First Amendment assumes that the government will attempt to silence the press, but the First Amendment also assumes that the press won’t voluntarily agree, won’t go down without a fight.” He added that “news outlets have a constitutional right to report from whichever perspective they see fit, but presidents don’t have a right to abuse their offices to shape those decisions, and executives like Ellison who are willing to let them do so need to stay out of the news business and find some other widget to sell.”

Please contact us if you would like further comment. You can watch the press conference below.

The open letter will be periodically updated incorporate new signatories.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

New York, May 27, 2026 — A federal judge twice rejected search warrant applications for the YouTube accounts of journalists Don Lemon and Georgia Fort, according to court records unsealed yesterday. Federal prosecutors sought the search warrants in connection with the spurious criminal cases they’re pursuing against Lemon and Fort for covering a protest at a church in St. Paul, Minnesota. A third journalist, photographer Junn Bollmann, is also facing baseless charges.

Magistrate Judge John Docherty rejected the initial warrants — which sought information about Lemon and Fort’s use of their YouTube channels as well as information about the people who may have watched them — because they lacked probable cause, a basic legal requirement for all search warrants.

Docherty then refused to sign the resubmitted search warrants because they failed to comply with the requirements of the Privacy Protection Act of 1980, a federal law that prohibits most search warrants targeting journalists and others who disseminate information to the public. The government later withdrew the search warrants, and Docherty ordered them unsealed.

The following statement can be attributed to Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) Senior Advocacy Adviser Caitlin Vogus:

“These failed search warrants are what happens when incompetent prosecutors pursue political vendettas instead of justice. Having or watching a YouTube channel aren’t crimes, and neither is reporting on a protest. Before the Department of Justice embarrasses itself even more, it should immediately drop the prosecutions of Don Lemon, Georgia Fort, and Junn Bollmann.

“Once again, the DOJ also conveniently left out of its applications any mention of the Privacy Protection Act of 1980 and later wrongly insisted that prosecutors don’t need to tell judges when the warrants the government seeks may violate federal law. At this point, every judge should assume the DOJ will try to sneak illegal search warrants past the court. Congress should pass the Privacy Protection Updates Act before this abuse gets even worse.

“Secrecy around search warrants can be dangerous. These applications only became public because the government failed so badly, and Judge John Docherty properly recognized the public’s right to see them. Given the DOJ’s repeated attacks on First Amendment rights and flagrant abuse of the legal system, journalists and all Americans should be asking what’s still buried in sealed search warrant applications around the country.”

Please contact us if you would like further comment.

The latest decision in journalist Catherine Herridge’s legal fight over confidential sources highlights how fragile the reporter-source privilege remains in the absence of a federal shield law. Not only did the court refuse to reconsider the order forcing Herridge to identify her confidential sources, but it also asked the public to accept its decision without immediate access to the court records we need to fully understand it.

On May 22, the appeals court declined to revisit its prior ruling requiring Herridge to name her confidential sources for her 2017 reporting about an FBI investigation into scientist Yanping Chen. Chen, who had founded an online college that received government funding, sued the FBI and other government agencies, claiming that federal officials damaged her career by leaking to the press. She then subpoenaed Herridge, arguing it was necessary to identify the source of those leaks.

Because there’s no federal shield law, Herridge tried to rely on the First Amendment and common law protections that many courts have recognized for reporters. But both the trial court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rejected those arguments.

That outcome, and the court’s latest refusal to reconsider it, should concern every journalist who depends on confidential sources. The reporter’s privilege exists because source confidentiality serves the public interest. Whistleblowers and others often come forward only because they believe journalists can protect them.

In Herridge’s case, however, the courts treated the public interest as secondary or even irrelevant. They focused narrowly on whether Herridge’s testimony was essential to Chen’s claim and whether Chen had exhausted other avenues to obtain the information she sought.

That approach turns the reporter’s privilege into a weak procedural obstacle, rather than the meaningful safeguard for newsgathering it’s supposed to be. The D.C. Circuit has previously said that it should be the rare, exceptional case where a reporter is compelled to reveal her sources. But the decision in the Herridge case means that other journalists may be more likely to be forced to do so in the future.

The secrecy surrounding certain documents in Herridge’s legal fight makes matters even worse.

The right of access to court proceedings is supposed to be contemporaneous

Herridge argued that she shouldn’t be forced to reveal her sources because any harm Chen suffered wasn’t caused by the alleged leaks, but rather by a later, independent decision by the Department of Defense to terminate the participation of the college Chen founded in a government tuition reimbursement program “on national security grounds.” But key records related to the department’s decision were sealed in the trial court and remain sealed, even though they directly relate to the justification for forcing Herridge to reveal her sources.

As a result, the public can’t fully evaluate whether the courts properly weighed the factors before ordering Herridge to comply with the subpoena. Parts of the oral argument in Herridge’s appeal were even held behind closed doors because of the sealed materials. That’s hard to square with the principle that court proceedings should happen in public view.

And that’s especially true of court proceedings that reshape constitutional rights, like this one. Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) and Herridge separately asked the appeals court to unseal the documents and hearing transcript. But in its May 22 ruling, the court declined to do so, sending the issue back to the district court instead. It didn’t explain why it wouldn’t act itself, even though its own rules allow it to unseal district court records “when the interests of justice require.”

This delay matters. The right of access to court proceedings is supposed to be contemporaneous, so the public can understand and assess in real time whether judges are doing their job properly. Courts shouldn’t be making groundbreaking decisions on the reporter’s privilege by relying on partially sealed arguments and secret court records, even if they’re later unsealed.

Herridge may now seek Supreme Court review. But the Supreme Court only accepts a small fraction of the cases it’s asked to hear each term, and there’s no guarantee that it would improve the reporter’s privilege even if it takes her case.

It’s understandable if Herridge decides that petitioning the Supreme Court is necessary to protect her sources and her professional ethics. But the best solution in the longer term for other journalists would come from Congress. Lawmakers should pass a shield law like the PRESS Act to provide clear, strong protection against compelled disclosure of journalists’ sources. Without a federal shield law on the books, confidential newsgathering may continue to be eroded, one subpoena at a time.

As online age verification laws become more common in the United States, Americans are increasingly turning to virtual private networks to avoid being forced to show their papers just to go online.

For journalists, however, a VPN is more than just a way to access Instagram without having to show their ID. Although VPNs aren’t a universal fix for every digital threat that reporters face (and not all VPNs are created equal), they’re an important tool that journalists rely on to do their jobs.

That makes recent attempts to ban VPNs to stop age-verification evasion a growing threat to press freedom. Utah recently became the first state to enact a limited VPN ban to enforce its age-check law, and other states are considering following suit.

Banning VPNs would make it harder for journalists to protect themselves, their newsgathering, and their confidential sources. To help lawmakers and the public understand what’s at stake, here are three critical ways VPNs actually protect journalists in the U.S.

1. VPNs allow journalists to conduct sensitive online research

The Digital Security Training team at Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) recommends that journalists conducting sensitive online research — like visiting websites controlled by the people they’re investigating — use a VPN.

A journalist’s internet connection is associated with an IP address that’s broadcast to every website they visit. That IP address may also reveal that it’s associated with a news organization. The operator of the website, in turn, can see every IP address that visits it. If a reporter is not using a VPN, a website operator could notice that an IP address associated with a news organization is visiting its website and become suspicious that they’re under investigation.

This concern is not hypothetical. In 2017, CyberScoop reported that a New York politician and his son, suspected (and later convicted) of corruption, were tipped off to a New York Times investigation when IP addresses from the Times’ office showed up in web server logs of a company the men were accused of illegally aiding.

However, if a journalist uses a VPN to conduct their online research, the IP address recorded by the website visitor will be that of the VPN, and not an IP address associated with the journalist’s home or workplace. Bottom line: Using a VPN can prevent a journalist’s online research from exposing their investigations.

2. VPNs help journalists avoid being linked with their confidential sources

Journalists often rely on confidential sources to report on national security matters, government wrongdoing, or abuses of authority. Journalists must be able to protect confidential sources’ identities, or many will be unwilling to speak to them.

During leak investigations, the government may seek records from a journalist’s internet service provider in an attempt to identify their confidential sources. Records kept by an ISP about the websites a journalist has visited could expose a confidential source, if, for instance, a journalist has visited a company or government website associated with a source or visited a source’s personal website.

A journalist’s ISP would also be able to see their peer-to-peer connections, such as when the journalist makes a voice or video call to a source using Signal or WhatsApp. This means an ISP could have data revealing that a journalist and source (or at least someone with the source’s IP address) had been in contact through a voice or video call.

A VPN, however, can protect journalists and their sources from government demands to ISPs seeking records about online research or peer-to-peer connections that can link them to their sources. Using a VPN, a journalist can ensure that the websites they visit would not be visible to their ISP, meaning the ISP would have no useful records to turn over in the event of a government demand. And while Signal and WhatsApp have built-in features that can hide your IP address when making video and voice calls, using a VPN would also prevent an ISP from having information about a journalist’s peer-to-peer connections.

3. VPNs protect journalists from some kinds of cyberattacks

In addition to surveillance by our own government, American journalists can also be the targets of other attempts to eavesdrop on their work, including through cyberattacks by foreign governments or groups who may be working on their behalf.

VPNs are one tool journalists can use to help prevent certain kinds of cyberattacks. In particular, VPNs can help protect against attacks that use unsecure WiFi connections to secretly monitor web traffic associated with a journalist’s device.

These kinds of attacks could target journalists using public WiFi, such as while working remotely from a coffee shop, library, or government building. But attackers can also exploit flaws in a legitimate, known WiFi router to intercept a journalist’s connections. Using this kind of network monitoring, bad actors could gather information about what websites a journalist is visiting.

A VPN helps protect against these kinds of attacks by encrypting the traffic between the journalist’s device and a secure external server. This prevents an attacker from being able to see the data being sent and received. Even in the absence of a malicious attack, using a VPN will also prevent the network administrator — such as the government entity offering the public WiFi in a government building — from logging the websites being visited by a device associated with a journalist.

One important note for journalists: VPNs do not provide protection against other kinds of attacks, such as those that use phishing to trick a user into installing malware or providing information to a third party. But some VPNs offer optional DNS-based content blocking that may provide some limited protection against recognized malware, trackers, ads, and more. In addition to using a VPN, journalists should continue to keep their devices up to date and use two-factor authentication, along with strong passwords and a password manager.

Protecting an important tool for the free press

Lawmakers must reject VPN bans to ensure that American journalists can rely on this important privacy tool, and that all Americans remain free to access information online.

The VPN bans being considered in the U.S. today seem to be mostly limited to stopping people from using VPNs to access certain social media platforms or adult websites. But even limited bans set a dangerous precedent. Russia and Iran, for instance, also started by claiming that VPN bans were necessary to protect children. Now, VPNs are banned far more widely in those countries, and the state has near-total control of what its citizens can see online.

American lawmakers must not start down a similar path. Freedom of the press and freedom of speech are increasingly under fire. The norms that have historically protected them are eroding, and legal protections are being weakened. Now is not the time to outlaw the tools that can keep our freedoms secure.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Washington, D.C., May 26, 2026 — The Washington Post reported today that the Trump administration is planning a broad, government-wide nondisclosure agreement to combat leaks to the press.

The following can be attributed to Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) Daniel Ellsberg Chair on Government Secrecy Lauren Harper:

“The proposal by the ‘most transparent administration in history’ that millions of federal employees sign a blanket NDA is not just absurd, it’s unnecessary and dangerously secretive.

“This policy, from a president who has previously attempted to impose oppressive, corporate-style confidentiality and nondisclosure agreements on federal employees, would kneecap whistleblower protections, undermine the First Amendment, and wrongly inhibit the public’s right to know. It comes at a time when agency watchdogs are sidelined, FOIA officials are being fired, and leaks to the press — which are the sole reason the public knows about so much of this administration’s misconduct — are being demonized and prosecuted.

“We know exactly what kind of information the administration wants to bury. Look no further than the FOIA release to Freedom of the Press Foundation that showed the administration had no solid legal rationale for conducting mass deportations under the Alien Enemies Act, substantiating a leak the administration called ‘fake news’ and cited as false justification for loosening restrictions on subpoenas to reporters.

“Trying to force the entire federal government to adopt the Trump organization’s aggressive use of NDAs won’t make anybody safer and won’t improve agency processes. Its sole intent would be to protect the administration from the leak of embarrassing, politically damaging, or unlawful information.”

Please contact us if you would like further comment.

Dear Friend of Press Freedom:

ABC seems to have found its spine, but whether attorney and judicial watchdogs will follow suit when lawless lawyers harm the free press remains an open question. Meanwhile, a major government transparency win temporarily ensures that presidential records can’t be destroyed or locked away. Here’s more on what we’ve been working on to protect press freedom.

Complaint: Judge angled for federal gig while hearing Trump’s Pulitzer suit

A new complaint filed by Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) with a judicial ethics commission argues that Jeffrey Kuntz, chief judge of a Florida appeals court, violated his ethical duties by ruling in President Donald Trump’s favor in a defamation lawsuit while simultaneously seeking a nomination from Trump to the federal judiciary.

Kuntz failed to recuse himself from Trump’s frivolous defamation lawsuit against the Pulitzer Prize Board or disclose his conflict of interest to the parties. Two weeks after he ruled for Trump, the White House Counsel’s Office interviewed Kuntz for a judicial vacancy. He’s since been nominated to the federal bench.

“Trump can’t win his SLAPP suits on the merits, so he finds ways to corrupt the court system instead,” said Seth Stern, FPF’s chief of advocacy. “Attorney disciplinary commissions are notorious for inaction, often functioning more like protection rackets for lawyers and judges than regulators. That said, we hope the commission will rise to the moment and do the right thing.”

• Read the complaint

Press groups rally behind ABC as FCC targets ‘The View’

The American Broadcasting Company is (finally) living up to its name by standing up for a vital American value.

This week, a coalition of press freedom groups led by FPF joined an open letter in solidarity with ABC, which recently took a stand against the Federal Communications Commission, accusing the agency in an FCC filing of attempting to “chill critical protected speech.”

“Corporate owners only invite more bullying when they capitulate,” said FPF Deputy Director of Advocacy Adam Rose. “But history shows that fighting back is a winning formula.”

• Read the full letter here

Court orders Trump team to preserve presidential records

A federal judge has temporarily ordered the Trump administration officials to follow the Presidential Records Act and preserve text messages, including Signal messages, related to its work. The judge issued the order in response to a motion filed in a lawsuit brought by FPF, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, the American Historical Association, and American Oversight.

As FPF Daniel Ellsberg Chair on Government Secrecy Lauren Harper said, the court’s order “takes an important step in ensuring that presidential records remain exactly what they have been for nearly 50 years: public property.” For more on the lawsuit, subscribe to FPF’s newsletter on government secrecy, The Classifieds.

• Read more

Paramount, Ellisons silent on Trump CNN threats

Our shareholder demand to Paramount earlier this month focused on CEO David Ellison trading journalistic independence for merger approval. Ellison reportedly promised Trump “sweeping” changes at CNN if he buys its parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery.

It made headlines, but one issue it raised deserves more attention, as FPF Executive Director Trevor Timm explained in a recent video. Last month, Trump took to Truth Social and announced a criminal investigation after CNN quoted an Iranian statement he didn’t like. Any investigation would be totally frivolous, but the president personally threatening a company you’re seeking to buy is a big deal.

But David Ellison and his centibillionaire father and financier Larry haven’t said a word — either about the threat’s materiality to the transaction or in defense of the rights of the journalists they hope to soon employ. That’s how little they care about both their shareholders and press freedom.

• Watch more

New bill seeks to curb abusive subpoenas

Administrative subpoenas allow the government to demand records from big tech and phone companies, in secret and without ever going before a judge. So it’s no surprise that the Trump administration has been caught exploiting them to target its online critics and watchdogs.

A new bipartisan bill in Congress, the Subpoena Abuse Prevention Act, would rein in those abuses. That’s good news for journalists, whose phone records have been targeted by both Democratic and Republican administrations.

“For journalists in particular, phone records can expose sensitive information about communications with confidential sources,” FPF Senior Adviser Caitlin Vogus explained. “This legislation would strengthen protections for those communications and help ensure that journalists cannot be targeted with subpoenas for doing their jobs.”

• Read more

The government’s baseless criminal charges against Minnesota-based journalist Georgia Fort are discouraging her from speaking to sources. They should be dropped immediately, along with the cases brought against other journalists who covered the St. Paul church protest.

Chris Robbins, who had to sue the New York City Police Department so Gothamist could get press passes after eight years of waiting, gets it right: “Don’t we want to keep the definition of ‘journalist’ as wide as possible? Isn’t the alternative an invitation to the government to start pulling the ladder up on who gets to be a reporter?”

It’s good that Pensacola State College changed course, but it’s outrageous that it ever happened. Don’t colleges have professors and lawyers on hand with the minimal level of familiarity with the First Amendment needed to spot the constitutional problems here?

It’s been more than four years since Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was shot dead in the West Bank. It’s time for the U.S. to open up its investigation into her death.

A landlord threatened a tenants’ union for speaking to the press before they’d settled a case and agreed to refrain from making public statements. That’s wrong. “The public deserves to know what’s going on in their communities economically [and] socially. If people are afraid to talk to reporters, we are poorer as a society for it,” FPF’s Rose explained.

SLAPPs, or strategic lawsuits against public participation, targeting journalists are always wrong, but it’s especially galling for a professor to try to use the legal system to silence a student newspaper. Hopefully this fee award will deter others who try to bully student journalists.

This week, President Donald Trump once again hijacked the court system to launder corruption. He purportedly “settled” litigation with his own Department of Justice in exchange for a $1.8 billion slush fund to compensate political allies who claim to be victims of weaponization, as well as a deal to never investigate alleged tax evasion by the Trump family.

That’s the same DOJ that outside its headquarters flies a giant banner of Trump — making his best tough guy face, with his eyes uncharacteristically open. But before the DOJ unfurled its “Dear Leader” flag, Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr pinned Trump’s gilded image to his lickspittling lapel and renounced his agency’s independence.

And before the DOJ’s latest mockery of the legal system, Carr facilitated Trump’s shakedown of CBS parent Paramount, holding up regulatory approval of Paramount’s merger with Skydance until it paid Trump $16 million to settle his absolutely frivolous lawsuit over the editing of an interview with Kamala Harris by “60 Minutes.” He approved the merger two days after Trump got the check.

That could’ve been the end of it. Last July, Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) filed an ethics complaint against Carr, an attorney, with the Washington, D.C. Bar, making what we thought was an uncontroversial argument: It’s unethical for officers of the court to help the president use those courts to extract palm grease from companies they regulate.

Had the D.C. Bar disbarred or even merely disciplined Carr, Trump’s lawyers would know that facilitating self-dealing schemes might cost them something. It may not have stopped the administration’s avalanche of grift, but it might have hindered DOJ lawyers from so readily signing off on such blatant lawlessness.

It didn’t, though. Instead, Disciplinary Counsel Hamilton P. Fox III wrote in a letter dismissing our complaint that the ethics rules we cited had not previously been applied in similar contexts. He also included an incoherent argument that the First Amendment gave Carr some sort of wiggle room. As if to underscore his lack of First Amendment expertise, he marked his dismissal letter “confidential” (an alarmingly common practice among disciplinary offices). Here’s a pro tip: Don’t try to impose a prior restraint on an organization with “freedom of the press” in its name.

If the administration is going to go after you anyway, you might as well do your job.

But it should be obvious why there were no analogous precedents for the relief our complaint sought. No prior FCC chair helped a sitting president turn a courtroom into a conduit for bribery.

And even if the First Amendment could arguably acquiesce Carr’s anti-speech investigations of licensees (it can’t — just consult the statute under which the FCC operates or ask the version of Carr from before he put on that lapel pin), that has nothing to do with facilitating presidential shakedowns. There’s no universe where that’s protected by the Constitution.

The ethics rules’ prohibitions on “conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation” and “conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice” were drafted broadly on purpose — it’s impossible to predict every way future attorneys may misbehave. There’s plenty of room in those rules to crack down on Carr if the disciplinary office wanted to.

The reality is that Fox did what attorney disciplinary commissions frequently do — find an excuse to duck out of politically charged complaints (notwithstanding the occasional case that is too egregious for even them to ignore, e.g., Ed Martin and Rudy Giuliani). Lawyers joke about the inefficacy of disciplinary offices — it’s an open secret that they operate more like protection rackets for members of the bar than serious regulators.

Now we see where that cowardice led — a $16 million corrupt settlement begot a $1.8 billion one.

And the D.C. Bar’s hands-off approach certainly hasn’t earned it any goodwill from the administration. The DOJ filed suit against Fox and the D.C. Bar earlier this month, with Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche calling it a “blatantly partisan arm of leftist causes,” apparently because it disciplined the likes of Jeffrey Clark for trying to overturn the 2020 election.

There’s some good news. Lawyers from the Public Integrity Project are fighting the DOJ’s shenanigans in court, and the Legal Accountability Center has filed a new attorney disciplinary complaint against Carr. It’s an opportunity for Fox and the D.C. Bar to right past wrongs. If the administration is going to go after you anyway, you might as well do your job.

And maybe after you’re done battling Blanche’s political attacks, you can apply for some compensation from that weaponization fund you enabled.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

New York, May 19, 2026 — Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) filed a complaint today with the Florida Judicial Qualifications Commission against Jeffrey Kuntz, chief judge of the Florida Fourth District Court of Appeal.

Last February, Kuntz ruled in President Donald Trump’s favor in Trump’s frivolous defamation lawsuit against the Pulitzer Prize Board, even though he was seeking a nomination from Trump to the federal judiciary. He failed to recuse himself from the case or disclose his conflict of interest to the parties, in violation of ethical rules governing Florida judges.

Two weeks after Kuntz ruled for Trump, the White House Counsel’s Office interviewed Kuntz regarding the judicial vacancy he sought to fill. He was nominated to the federal bench last month and has faced questions from lawmakers about his failure to recuse himself from the Pulitzer case or disclose his conflict of interest to the parties.

The following can be attributed to Seth Stern, chief of advocacy at FPF:

“Trump can’t win his SLAPP suits on the merits, so he finds ways to corrupt the court system instead — from extracting bribes in exchange for merger approvals to settling litigation with his own agencies to rewarding judges who rule in his favor with lifetime appointments.

“It defies credibility that Judge Kuntz didn’t think the Pulitzer Board might want to know that he was applying for a job with Trump — a president infamous for transactionalism and political favoritism — while deciding Trump’s lawsuit against them. In any event, the Florida rules don’t leave it up to Kuntz’s subjective, self-serving discretion — judges must avoid even the appearance of impropriety.

“Attorney disciplinary commissions are notorious for inaction, often functioning more like protection rackets for lawyers and judges than regulators. That said, we hope the commission will rise to the moment and do the right thing.”

Please contact us if you would like further comment.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

New York, May 19, 2026 — A coalition of 15 press freedom groups joined an open letter in solidarity with ABC, which recently took a stand against Federal Communications Commission efforts to chill protected free speech.

The following quote can be attributed to Adam Rose, deputy director of advocacy for Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF):

“When Donald Trump’s feelings are hurt, his administration abuses its power to attack media outlets. Corporate owners only invite more bullying when they capitulate. But history shows that fighting back is a winning formula. We salute ABC for taking a stand on behalf of ‘The View’ and hope it remains as vigorous against the FCC’s so-called DEI investigation, which is all but nakedly about Jimmy Kimmel. Audiences, our organizations, and anyone who cares about free speech will stand with organizations that do the right thing.”

You can read the letter here.

Please contact us if you’d like further comment.

Update (5/20/26): This article has been revised to reflect additional signatories to the open letter in solidarity with ABC.

Dear Friend of Press Freedom:

Without whistleblowers, the reality of the war in Iran would stay hidden. The Trump administration is trying to silence those voices — and they want to force the press to help. Read on for how to stop them, and more of this week’s most important press freedom news.

‘National security’ is code for ‘bury the truth’

On Monday, The Wall Street Journal revealed that the Department of Justice sent grand jury subpoenas to the paper, demanding records of its journalists related to reporting about the lead-up to the Iran war. Other media outlets have received similar demands. Thankfully, the Journal has said it intends to fight back.

“The government’s investigation of The Wall Street Journal has nothing to do with ‘national security,’” said Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) Chief of Advocacy Seth Stern. “It’s an outrageous attempt to silence sources, intimidate journalists, and bury the truth.”

The DOJ is eager to ferret out confidential sources who’ve helped journalists report the truth about the war in Iran. If you’re a journalist, don’t wait to beef up your digital defenses. Explore FPF’s resources, training, and other services and take steps to protect your work and sources here.

Plus, everyone should tell their member of Congress to speak out and condemn the DOJ’s subpoenas to The Wall Street Journal and other news outlets.

• Take action

Israel threatens New York Times over torture report

Israel claimed this week that it will sue The New York Times over Nicholas Kristof’s column on the rape and torture of Palestinian prisoners, including some journalists.

The Israeli government may be bluffing, like it has before. But as FPF Executive Director Trevor Timm explains, any lawsuit would be both frivolous and outrageous.

Israel needs to stop shooting the messenger, including literally in Gaza and Lebanon, and take a look in the mirror that The New York Times is holding up.

• Watch more

Secret ethics sanctions for former U.S. attorney

A New York state grievance committee told us last week that it had found that John Sarcone, a former U.S. attorney in New York who’s still overseeing the prosecutors’ office, committed professional misconduct after investigating our ethics complaint over Sarcone’s retaliation against the Albany-based Times Union. But it claimed its decisions were confidential and we weren’t allowed to tell anyone.

Pro tip: Don’t try to impose an unconstitutional prior restraint on an organization with freedom of the press in its name. Sarcone’s case is plainly newsworthy and the public is entitled to monitor both his antics and whether the grievance committee is doing its job.

When legal ethics authorities frequently dismiss meritorious complaints or let people like Sarcone off with slaps on the wrists, they act more like protection rackets than regulators.

• Read more

Arrested and strip-searched for evading FOIA?

Armed federal agents recently arrested Dr. David Morens, a retired government scientist, strip-searched him, and charged him with crimes that could carry decades in prison — all for allegedly using his personal email to try and evade Freedom of Information Act requests from a mix of organizations, including the Heritage Foundation, Judicial Watch, and U.S. Right to Know.

FPF Daniel Ellsberg Chair on Government Secrecy Lauren Harper explains in The Intercept that Morens should be held accountable for violating FOIA, if the accusations against him are true. But his case raises a troubling question: Would the DOJ bring similar charges if the requesters were less politically aligned with the current administration?

The answer is likely no, and, as Harper writes, that’s the real danger: Making FOIA evasion a crime only if the administration has a score to settle.

• Read more

Join us for ‘Right to Know: Media and Whistleblowing’

On Tuesday, May 19, at 8:30 p.m. Eastern time, FPF, Whistleblower Aid, and the Society of Professional Journalists will host an off-the-record webinar for reporters about how to safely and legally disclose wrongdoing when their employers trade editorial independence to curry favor with the government. Attendees will be anonymous. It’s sad this is needed, but it is.

• Register here

Stern said Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr hopes broadcast licensees will self-censor in response to his frivolous attacks rather than pick a fight. “It’s about time news outlets start telling Carr and his Donald Trump lapel pin to kick rocks.”

We’ve sought an emergency order to stop the Trump administration from ignoring the Presidential Records Act and dismantling the system that preserves America’s history.

“We are participating in corporate governance to protect the freedom of the press and protect our investment,” FPF’s Stern explained.

Public employees like those at the Department of Veterans Affairs have the right to speak on matters of public concern as private citizens.

As our panelists discussed in a webinar earlier this month, it’s way past time for the Securities and Exchange Commission to throw its plainly unconstitutional prior restraint in the trash bin.

“Some people leave prison quieter. Others return determined to speak out loud,” writes Ahmed Shihab-Eldin, the journalist recently freed from a Kuwaiti prison after nearly two months behind bars.

Learn how free speech bullies use the court system to silence reporters and every day people in this talk from First Amendment lawyer Laura Prather.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

New York, May 12, 2026 — The Wall Street Journal revealed yesterday that the Department of Justice sent grand jury subpoenas to the paper, demanding records of its journalists related to reporting about the lead-up to the Iran war. In recent months, prosecutors have also sent subpoenas to other media organizations, and to email and phone providers seeking information in leak inquiries, according to sources who spoke to the Journal.

The following can be attributed to Freedom of the Press Foundation Chief of Advocacy Seth Stern:

“The government’s investigation of The Wall Street Journal has nothing to do with ‘national security.’ It’s an outrageous attempt to silence sources, intimidate journalists, and bury the truth about President Trump’s unpopular decision to launch a war even his own generals warned against.

“We’ve seen this cowardly script before. ‘National security’ was a lie when the government tried to stop journalists from publishing the Pentagon Papers to cover up its failures, and it’s a lie now.

“These subpoenas are a direct threat to the public’s right to know, and the Journal is correct to fight them. Since the Department of Justice has abandoned the First Amendment, it’s up to the courts to restrain the government’s attempts to crush investigative journalism.

“Journalists at every news outlet across the U.S. must also harden their digital defenses now, to protect their sources from an administration obsessed with silencing critics and dismantling the free press.”

Please contact us if you would like further comment.

Dear Friend of Press Freedom:

Billionaires have been hard at work trading away your right to get the news without government interference, but we’re working just as hard to fight back. Read on for the latest press freedom news and how you can join us in standing up for press freedom.

Exposing Paramount’s press freedom sellout

Between the gutting of CBS News and reports of promises to remake CNN to appease the president, it’s clear that Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison and his father and financial backer, Larry Ellison, see press freedom as just another bargaining chip.

The public deserves to know if the Ellisons are trading editorial independence for regulatory favors. That’s why Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) and Reporters Without Borders filed a demand for records from Paramount Skydance, seeking to uncover the details of its dealings with the Trump administration as it tries to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery, and in its past acquisition of Paramount.

And as Seth Stern, chief of advocacy at FPF, explains, “If the Ellisons can’t stand up to their friends in the administration and defend the First Amendment, they should stay away from the news business.”

• Read more

Investigating leaks, Kash Patel demands higher proof

FBI Director Kash Patel denies he’s been drunk on the job, but he’s certainly drunk on power.

The FBI has reportedly opened an investigation into Atlantic magazine journalist Sarah Fitzpatrick’s reporting on Patel’s alleged unexplained absences and drinking habits at the bureau. Patel is also reported to have ordered scores of staffers to be polygraphed as part of a panic-fueled leak hunt.

This is the second time in recent weeks we’ve learned that the FBI has baselessly investigated constitutionally protected, highly newsworthy reporting that was unfavorable to its director. The bureau’s actions “show complete disregard for the First Amendment and for the FBI’s supposed mission of stopping crime, not serving as PIs for its leadership on the taxpayer dime,” said FPF’s Stern.

• Read more

Financial censorship of SPLC could impact the press next

Rainey Reitman, the president of FPF’s board, wrote for The Intercept about how financial institutions’ decision to cut off funds to the Southern Poverty Law Center after its widely criticized indictment could foreshadow attacks on others the administration dislikes, including the press.

“Given the Trump administration’s open hostility to journalism and its novel legal tactics to attack the press, it’s entirely possible that the next target of financial censorship could be a news outlet,” wrote Reitman, who recently released a book on financial censorship,“Transaction Denied: Big Finance’s Power to Punish Speech.”

• Read more

Take action to modernize U.S. Virgin Islands public records laws

The U.S. Virgin Islands is the site of news of both local and national importance, from military facilities to “Epstein Island.” But the U.S. territory’s public records and open meetings laws are badly outdated.

Thankfully, investigative journalist and U.S. Virgin Islands native Shirley L. Smith is helping to spearhead a campaign to modernize the transparency laws. Use our action center to tell local lawmakers to move quickly to improve transparency and accountability in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

• Take action

Join us to hear tips from former FOIA officials on how to still get public records

Former federal Freedom of Information Act officials will join FPF Daniel Ellsberg Chair on Government Secrecy Lauren Harper for a live webinar on Friday, May 15, at 2 p.m. ET to give practical advice for journalists on how to win documents from agencies and explain what to do when an agency prioritizes political interests over transparency.

Submit your questions ahead of time by emailing membership@freedom.press, and don’t forget to register to watch the webinar on May 15.

• Register here

Silenced by the SEC

This week, legendary First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams and other experts joined FPF to talk about the dangers of Securities and Exchange Commission’s “gag rule,” which prohibits individuals who settle with the agency from disputing its allegations publicly. We discussed how the rule threatens First Amendment interests far beyond the financial sector, how such an unconstitutional prior restraint can persist for decades, and ongoing litigation seeking to strike down the rule.

• Watch the discussion here

We need a court to affirm that presidential records are public property and categorically reject the radical idea that they’re personal property, FPF’s Harper explained on “1A.”

The Trump administration is taking its weaponization of immigration laws against journalists worldwide, but it won’t stop there. If it could, it would exile any reporter who dares to investigate the president and his allies, no matter where they’re from.

It’s great to see reporting on retaliation against incarcerated whistleblowers and news sources. But this kind of retaliation is certainly not limited to those who participate in reporting about Jeffrey Epstein’s accomplices — it should be covered regularly.

Strong anti-SLAPP legislation in every state and at the federal level would go a long way in assuring news outlets that they can publish the truth without being bankrupted by frivolous lawsuits.

It’s absurd that in 2026, New York state agencies may still require public records appeals to be done via snail mail. FPF and other groups are urging state lawmakers to pass a new bill that would require agencies to accept electronic appeals.

“The fact the [ICE partnership] program is inherently tied to local communities and local policing, and ICE is giving local law enforcement a gag order, is a slap in the face of taxpayers and the public at large,” explained FPF’s Harper.

Further proof that going on offense against the Trump administration’s censorial bullying works. Take these clowns to court — they lose regularly!

Correction: An earlier version of the newsletter item discussing financial censorship referred incorrectly to the name of the Southern Poverty Law Center. The error has been corrected.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Washington, D.C., May 8, 2026 — ABC is accusing the Federal Communications Commission of violating the First Amendment and chilling press freedom, in a regulatory filing in its dispute with the FCC over whether “The View” is a bona fide news program exempt from the agency’s equal time requirement.

The following can be attributed to Freedom of the Press Foundation Chief of Advocacy Seth Stern:

“We commend ABC for standing up for itself and the First Amendment. The legal theories the FCC asserts against broadcast licensees are frivolous and unconstitutional, and FCC Chair Brendan Carr knows it, but he hopes broadcast licensees will nonetheless self-censor rather than pick a fight.

“It’s about time news outlets start telling Carr and his Donald Trump lapel pin to kick rocks. Otherwise, he’ll continue manufacturing bogus pretexts to harass and jawbone licensees that air content his boss doesn’t like. News outlets should be emboldened after seeing The New York Times, Media Matters, The Washington Post, and others go on offense against the administration in court and win. Carr won’t stop until a judge forces him to, and hopefully ABC plans to make that happen, both here and in Carr’s equally ridiculous retaliatory license renewal proceeding in response to comedian Jimmy Kimmel’s jokes.”

Please contact us if you would like further comment.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

New York, May 7, 2026 — Today, Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) and Reporters Without Borders, Inc. demanded records from Paramount Skydance Corp. regarding potentially corrupt acquisitions and deals that could result in relinquishing editorial control of major news outlets to the Trump administration. Public reports suggest that David Ellison and his father Larry may have tried to secure regulatory approval to acquire Paramount and now Warner Bros. Discovery by, among other things:

• Making a “side deal” to settle President Trump’s spurious lawsuit against “60 Minutes” by providing $15 million to $20 million worth of free advertising.
• Installing a pro-Trump GOP donor without journalism experience as “ombudsman” at CBS News to evaluate complaints of “bias” and to eliminate all diversity, equity, and inclusion practices.
• Promising to make “sweeping” changes to CNN, and to potentially fire anchors and commentators whom Trump dislikes.

Since Paramount Skydance announced its most consequential Trump-friendly changes at CBS News in October — acquiring The Free Press and appointing Bari Weiss as editor-in-chief — the company’s market capitalization has decreased by 40%, wiping out more than $8 billion in shareholder value. Ratings for key programs, like “CBS Evening News with Tony Dokoupil,” have also dropped precipitously. Freedom of the Press Foundation and Reporters Without Borders, which are both shareholders in Paramount Skydance Corp., are entitled to inspect the company’s books and records related to these developments under Section 220 of the Delaware General Corporation Law.

“Shareholders are entitled to know when the government uses its leverage over corporate transactions as a backdoor to meddle in editorial decisions that the First Amendment leaves to the press,” said Seth Stern, chief of advocacy at Freedom of the Press Foundation. “Larry and David Ellison’s capitulation not only harms the public and our democracy, it hurts Paramount by producing news shows people don’t want to watch and tanking the reputations of news outlets in order to appease Trump. If the Ellisons can’t stand up to their friends in the administration and defend the First Amendment, they should stay away from the news business.”

“We need to know what the Ellisons may have promised the president to secure these deals,” said Clayton Weimers, executive director of Reporters Without Borders, Inc. “This acquisition has all the warning signs of a political capture. The American public deserves to know whether the Ellisons are sacrificing editorial independence to appease Donald Trump and secure regulatory approval from an administration that is openly hostile to press freedom.”

“Our clients are entitled to the same records as any other shareholder in Paramount, and legally, the company must comply,” said Brendan Ballou, CEO of the Public Integrity Project. “If Paramount fails to do so, we are prepared to vindicate our clients’ rights in court.”

Under Delaware law, Paramount has five business days to respond to the shareholders’ request. Freedom of the Press Foundation and Reporters Without Borders are being represented by the Public Integrity Project and Ron Poliquin of The Poliquin Firm.

Please email Seth Stern (seth@freedom.press) for any follow-up questions or inquiries.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

New York, May 6, 2026 — The FBI has reportedly opened a criminal leak investigation into Atlantic magazine journalist Sarah Fitzpatrick’s reporting on Director Kash Patel’s alleged unexplained absences and drinking habits at the bureau.

The following can be attributed to Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) Chief of Advocacy Seth Stern:

“The FBI’s probe would be outrageous even if The Atlantic reported classified information, which it didn’t. The FBI is reportedly conducting an invasive leak investigation merely to settle a personal vendetta. Separately, it doesn’t make much sense for Patel’s FBI to investigate leaks from what Patel’s lawsuit over the same reporting called ‘sham sources.’ Fake sources can’t leak.

“This is the second time in recent weeks we’ve learned that the bureau has baselessly investigated constitutionally protected, highly newsworthy reporting that was unfavorable to its director — last month, news broke that it investigated reporter Elizabeth Williamson, after she wrote about Patel’s use of government resources for transportation and security expenses for his girlfriend. Both show complete disregard for the First Amendment and for the FBI’s supposed mission of stopping crime, not serving as PIs for its leadership on the taxpayer dime.”

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Dear Friend of Press Freedom:

U.S. journalist Alex Colston was detained by Israel for a second time while on board an international aid flotilla to Gaza, along with French and Turkish Al Jazeera journalists and almost 200 activists. He reports that he and other abductees were held for two days in shipping containers, in stress positions and under floodlights, while some endured further torture. Most of them have been released, but the U.S. State Department was of no help. It opted to condemn the flotillas rather than defending Americans illegally abducted in international waters.

Read on for more press freedom news. But first, tell your lawmakers to help put a stop to domestic surveillance by reforming FISA Section 702.

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Bootlicking Brendan’s back at it

Days before the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, comedian Jimmy Kimmel made a joke about President Donald Trump’s mortality. No one protested until after a gunman unsuccessfully attempted to evade security at the dinner. Trump then feigned outrage, claiming Kimmel called for his assassination. Because there’s no other reason to joke that a 79-year-old whose own health secretary says it’s a wonder he’s alive might not be long for this world.

The following day, Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr and his Donald Trump lapel pin ordered Disney’s ABC, which airs Kimmel’s show, to seek early renewal of its broadcast licenses. It’s the latest escalation in Carr’s never-ending quest to kiss up to his boss by attacking free speech.

We said in a statement, “The FCC is neither the journalism police nor the humor police. This is nothing but illegal jawboning intended to intimidate ABC into kissing the ring.” And Carr’s claims that his attack on ABC is really about diversity, equity, and inclusion — not censorship — is an insult to our intelligence. That he felt the need to cite a pretext only further demonstrates that he knows full well that his prior threats of content-based retaliation were frivolous.

ABC needs to fight back to make clear that Carr’s new tactic won’t work. Otherwise it’s entirely possible he’ll try it again next time a news show inspires a late night rage tweet from his boss.

• Read more

It’s almost World Press Freedom Day. Someone forgot to tell the world

For years, World Press Freedom Day on May 3 has helped spotlight global press freedom violations. It’s a day to demand justice for journalists murdered in Gaza and Lebanon, or to celebrate the release of wrongfully detained reporters like Ahmed Shihab-Eldin.

Holding foreign regimes accountable for press freedom is essential, and it’s been a rough year for journalists’ rights all around the globe. But this year, the U.S. — which dropped to 64th out of 180 countries in Reporters Without Borders’ World Press Freedom Index — needs to take a hard look in the mirror, too.

• Read more

FPF sues for White House texts

FPF joined Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington in a lawsuit seeking to establish that federal agencies must abide by the Presidential Records Act, including the provision that presidential papers become subject to release under the Freedom of Information Act five years after the end of the president’s term. The suit follows the Justice Department’s nonsense memo claiming the PRA is unconstitutional and contests the White House’s internal guidance allowing deletion of text messages, despite the act’s requirements.

• Read The New York Times’ report

Hear from experts on the SEC gag rule

Those seeking to settle regulatory actions by the Securities and Exchange Commission are prohibited from publicly disputing the SEC’s claims against them. It’s a dangerous prior restraint, especially as financial regulators deal with new technologies from cryptocurrency to prediction markets. They’re sure to make mistakes, and you deserve to be informed.

We’ve assembled a group of experts, including legendary First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams and attorneys from the New Civil Liberties Alliance, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, and the law firm Quinn Emanuel, to talk about the dangers of the “gag rule” and current efforts to challenge it at the Supreme Court. Join us on Tuesday, May 5, at 2 p.m. ET.

• Register here

Any longer term extension must include reforms to stop illegal surveillance of journalists and other Americans. Maybe this will help: Sen. Ron Wyden said he “secured a deal that a long-term extension would not move forward without a secretive court opinion being made public, which he says reveals abuses of Americans’ rights through section 702.”

Israel’s excuses for barring international press from entering Gaza were nonsense at the height of the war. They make even less sense now. It’s clearer than ever that Israel doesn’t want the world to see the truth and Americans to see what they’re bankrolling.

“Some executives are asking not, ‘Is the story true?’ But, ‘Is it good for business?’”

News companies have caved to Carr and Trump in the past, but times have changed — Trump is highly unpopular and loses in court regularly. We hope ABC not only defends itself but goes on offense to put a stop to Carr’s jawboning for good.

It’s impossible to look at the firing of FOIA officials after the release of a declassified memo to FPF as “anything other than inappropriate retaliation for a lawful FOIA release,” FPF’s Lauren Harper explains.

Kentucky’s legislature needs to step in and fix this. Government officials can’t be allowed to evade transparency by using personal devices to discuss government business.