A federal judge ordered the White House on Tuesday to restore The Associated Press’ full access to cover presidential events, affirming on First Amendment grounds that the government cannot punish the news organization for the content of its speech.

Local officials and business moguls are also turning to lawsuits or the threat of them to silence the press.

How Signal, Silence, and Schedule F Are Killing Government Transparency

If you relied on articles and broadcasts from the legacy national news media during early 2025, you wouldn’t know the extent of grassroots action prompted by this discontent.

During the 2024 campaign, the Times sane-washed Trump’s mental unfitness, downplayed MAGA fascism, and sometimes treated a political turning point for our country as a source of lighthearted amusement.

In a country that routinely distrusts and villainizes local news, these attacks did not occur in a vacuum; if they can happen in Clarksdale or Marion, they can happen anywhere.

Bob, with his remarkable intellect and even more remarkable capacity for communicating his vision of a media that served citizens rather than corporations, was always the driving force. His research and his insatiable curiosity helped him to see the future more clearly than any scholar of his generation...

In 2024, the Democrats ran on the catchphrase “We are not going back.” Even after the party’s resounding defeat, the refrain may have been more prophetic than they imagined. New research shows that once a country begins a descent into authoritarianism it’s extremely difficult to reverse. And the first vector of attack is often the free press.

Chinese state media are celebrating President Donald Trump’s move to gut Voice of America and other U.S. government-funded news outlets that push back against authoritarian regimes.

When narrative becomes weapon, media becomes battleground. Trump’s second term isn’t just a return to power—it’s a full-scale war on truth.

Much of what the U.S. president has done to curb independent media echoes the Hungarian autocrat Viktor Orbán’s playbook.

In his book Murder the Truth, author David Enrich explores how Justice Thomas' words coincide with a surge in legal threats and litigation against journalists and media outlets.

Before Trump’s inauguration, the US government supported independent journalism in more than 30 countries. Most of this funding was channelled through USAID. According to a USAID factsheet recently mentioned by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and now taken offline, the agency funded training and support for 6,200 journalists and assisted 707 outlets.

Leavitt insisted the change was a “long overdue” corrective to an “outdated” system, which gave “left wing stenographers” a “monopoly” on access. But the real message behind the move was plain: The Trump administration will punish news organizations for unfavorable coverage and uncomfortable questions.

After years of warnings about what Donald Trump would do if he returned to power, the president is dismantling institutions, warping law enforcement agencies, seeking retribution on his critics, treating undocumented immigrants with cruelty, imposing and threatening seismic tariffs, and openly musing about seizing foreign territories. The American experiment is convulsing before our eyes.

And yet, you wouldn't quite realize it from the tone of the news coverage.