World Press Freedom Day & 100 Days Of Trump II

May 3rd is World Press Freedom Day. Amnesty International surveyed a holistic global 2025 review. I wanted to highlight this moment in the context of President Trump’s first 100 days in office. A threshold we crossed just a few days ago. Why the domestic lens? The US has often been a model of democratic norms for countries. If our institutional checks cannot withstand the strain there may be spillover effects and uneasy questions about weaker democracies. As Axios reports, Reporters Without Borders has dropped the United States 17 places in their global press freedom index. We are now situated between Sierra Leone and Gambia. What could be some of the causes for this unprecedented drop?

I detailed the ongoing arguments in the AP WH lawsuit over the last couple of newsletters. Two weeks ago the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals heard appeals in the case. The outcome does not look promising. Judge McFadden even began to look reticent in enforcing his previous injunction. The WH eliminated the wire press pool spot entirely to give its actions the perceptual air of equal opportunity denier. The case is ongoing but does not forebode well for WH access to the Press. POTUS has long argued that he cannot be anti-press given the amount of engagement and open recent interviews he gives to the press. His so-called access ebbs and flows with his mood.

More importantly, a measure of press freedom is not the quantity of access alone. A despot can roll out cameras and place sycophants in the front row but that serves no real transparent check on an executive. Last month a “new media” reporter from LindellTV (yes the MyPillow CEO of the same name), asked how Trump was looking so fit and in shape. Later that month a self-claimed “grassroots activist” from a Trump-adjacent non-profit asked the Press Sec what direction her reporting should take. The goal of the WH is to create an echo chamber immune from criticism and real questions. Trump has in the last 100 days told reporters to their faces they are mean, fake news, and dumb for asking questions he deems unflattering to his agenda. Biden was also not immune from criticizing the press even being caught on a hot mic calling a Fox News reporter a SOB (to which he later apologized.) I will document the Biden years in future newseltters but need to triage press threats. The systemization and scale of what Trump is without precedent even for his last term. This is not limited to just the White House. The Department of Defense has held one press briefing in 100 days.

I will continue to profile WH access for the Press; however, growing press battles with even larger scope are at our door. The White House has announced this week via an EO that it will, unlawfully, remove federal funding for several public broadcasting groups. The FCC under the new leadership of Brendan Carr is putting undue, unethical, and likely unlawful pressure on CBS to settle a 60 Minutes suit alleging bias over a Kamala Harris interview cut. CBS is looking to settle likely due to regulatory merger concerns. One of the longtime producers of 60 Minutes stepped down just this week citing concerns of journalistic independence. Other companies have already settled other suits not wanting to risk the wrath of the administration. Many observers have already undocumented the tragic irony or duplicity of the anti-censorship campaigner actively being the champion of censorship. Over the next 1300 days we will see the Trump administration use the regulatory might of the Executive to jawbone, chill, and coerce. Let’s hope our media institutions, courts, and democratic guardrails hold fast. A republic, if we can keep it.