World
Trump's
attacks on media test US press freedom rules
Deutsche
Welle,
Olivia
Gillian
Published
Apr 27, 2025 08:40 AM PHT
On April 22,
courts ruled in favor of the US-based broadcaster Voice of America's lawsuit
against the White House, in a rebuke to US President Donald Trump's targeting
of the free press.
From gutting
Voice of America (VOA), to barring the Associated Press (AP) from the Oval
Office, to threatening to defund publicly-funded media like National Public
Radio (NPR), the Trump administration and his allies have had the American
press in their crosshairs.
Some of
Trump's attacks on the press started even before he won the White House. Trump
sued CBS before the 2024 presidential election for editing an interview with
his rival Kamala Harris in way he deemed unfavorable. He also sued a newspaper
in Iowa, the Des Moines Register and J. Ann Selzer, a pollster, for publishing
a survey that showed Harris leading Trump in the presidential race in the
state. Those cases are ongoing.
Small
wins
But some
outlets are fighting back and scoring some wins.
A federal
judge ordered the Trump government to restore VOA's funding and reinstate the
global broadcaster's employees and contractors. More than 1,000 of them were
suspended after the president signed an executive order dismantling VOA's
parent company, the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM).
A court also
sided with the AP in its lawsuit to get access restored after it was banned
from the Oval Office over its refusal to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the
"Gulf of America." President Trump has insisted the waterway be
referred to as the latter. In an April 8 decision, US district judge Trevor N.
McFadden ruled that the ban violated the wire service's First Amendment rights.
The Trump administration said it will appeal the ruling.
Under the US
constitution, the First Amendment provides for the protection of fundamental
freedoms of religion, speech, press, assembly and petition.
But free
speech advocates caution that while these freedoms are outlined in the US
constitution, Trump's crackdown on the free press shows the First Amendment
requires active defense.
Who will
speak out?
"No
matter how wonderfully protective the First Amendment and Supreme Court
decisions upholding the First Amendment are in principle, they are not
self-enforcing," said Nadine Strossen, a senior fellow at the Foundation
for Individual Rights and Expression.
"It
requires lawyers to advocate to courts to uphold and enforce First Amendment
rights and when you have law firms being intimidated from locking horns with
the Trump administration, because it can put them out of business, that is very
scary."
President
Trump signed a series of executive orders particularly targeting law firms he
deemed "risks," mostly to punish them for employing lawyers involved
in investigating past cases against Trump himself or for defending people or
causes Trump is ideologically opposed to — such as diversity, equity and
inclusion programs.
That could
potentially thin the ranks of those willing to go toe-to-toe with the Trump
administration to stand against free speech violations.
But legal
recourse is only going to become more necessary, with Trump signaling more
moves against the free press to come.
On April 14,
a White House article appeared to target publicly funded broadcasters.
"For years, American taxpayers have been on the hook for subsidizing
National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), which
spread radical, woke propaganda disguised as 'news'," it said.
Controlling
the narrative
To NPR's
media correspondent David Folkenflik, Trump's moves to shutter publicly funded
outlets is in line with his wider strategy of ensuring he commands the public
narrative.
"The
idea that taxpayer money, that government money would go to support a news
outlet that is seeking to provide verifiable and independent reporting with its
own editorial judgment is an affront to the idea that somehow [Trump] controls
every message, he controls every news cycle, he controls every editorial
judgment," Folkenflik said.
But press
freedom watchdogs say government control over messaging is at odds with the
exercise of democracy in society.
"It's a
principle that you often find people don't really want to talk about, or they
don't quite get why it would relate to them, until they're under threat of
targeting or silencing or chilling, and we're in a real anti-free speech and
anti-accountability, anti-democratic moment," said Nora Benavidez, who
leads democracy initiatives at Free Press, a non-profit dedicated to defending
press freedom.
Benavidez
warns that the combination of Trump's lack of commitment to facts, and
disenfranchisement of media outlets creates additional confusion and room for
mis- and disinformation, which threatens overall democratic stability. The
Trump administration, as well as the former White House bureau chief for the
organization.
VOA is often
one of the few sources of uncensored news in countries with repressive
governments, such as in Iran, Russia, Belarus, Afghanistan and North Korea.
There are
also very personal repercussions to the Trump administration's moves.
And
non-American staff who had to leave the US after losing their VOA jobs and
their working visas could face repercussions once in their home countries, one
VOA employee working on a contract basis told DW.
He spoke to
DW anonymously out of concern for potential retribution.
"There
are so many journalists who came to VOA for the promise of practicing freedom
of the press in a country where it's constitutionally guaranteed," he
said. "Many of those journalists are not citizens, and they're in danger
if they have to return to their countries of origin. They face imprisonment or
even worse if they have to leave this country."
"My
hope is that there are people in high places, and also the average voter, [who]
will stand up for constitutionally protected freedom of the press," the
VOA contractor said.
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