(Editor’s Note: The graphic below, originally published May 2, 2025, is updated periodically to add new developments, marked as “NEW.” Today’s update also includes new analysis in the 4th through 7th paragraphs.)
Faced with a barrage of breaking news out of the Trump administration, it is easy to become paralyzed. This is arguably intentional: Flood the zone to ensure the news cycle is so overwhelming that the media (not to mention, the public) cannot keep up. In this information ecosystem, it is crucial that people retain the ability to track how State power is being used. This, in turn, requires systematically identifying linkages between individual developments and broader trends.
The graphic below offers one method, or practice, of resistance to a “muzzle velocity” news cycle that makes it hard to think about, let alone understand, the ways in which the Trump administration is wielding State power. This focuses on threats to press freedom, but the concept can be applied to other broad issues, too. By absorbing each additional news item as a data point for or against a threat to a particular democratic norm, rather than as a singular development, it becomes possible to keep sight of the big picture – and direct action accordingly. (cont’d below…)
Credit: Threats to Press Freedom by Just Security
Click on any of the titles below to see more specific items and links through to reporting/sources.
This graphic is based on an earlier article I wrote for Just Security, which synthesized numerous breaking news items to illuminate a set of growing threats to press freedom. Those threats came from aggressive actions by the Trump administration, such as evicting independent media organizations from office space in the Pentagon in favor of enthusiastically pro-Trump outlets, and from appeasement actions by media outlets – like the ABC’s $15 million settlement with Trump in a case that legal experts say it could have readily won on the merits.
Since the previous tracker update on June 30, press freedom in the United States has continued to deteriorate. Developments in relation to two threats are of particular note.
First, there were unprecedented actions in relation to the threat classified in this graphic as “Harm to Outlets,” which tracks instances of State power being used to harass or shutter media outlets. On July 24, Trump signed a bill that Congress passed at his behest to rescind funding it had previously appropriated for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB). Then, on July 31, the Senate Appropriations Committee voted not to provide CPB funding going forward. This marks the first time that Congress, which established the CPB in 1967 as a private nonprofit, will not appropriate funds for the Corporation. The CPB’s role has been to distribute federal funds to support more than 1,500 locally managed and operated public television and radio stations nationwide, as well as their research, technology, and program development. On Aug. 1, the CPB announced that it would be closing.
Second, in relation to the threat category “Currying Favor” which tracks deal-making between the president and media/platform owners, the Trump administration approved the Paramount-Skydance merger. The approval came after Paramount agreed to a $16 million settlement deal with Trump over his lawsuit against Paramount over the CBS show 60 Minutes’ pre-election interview with Kamala Harris. (This joins the list of multi-million dollar settlements by major outlets with Trump in relation to suits that legal experts say could have been won by the outlets in court.) The merger approval also came on the heels of an announcement by CBS that it was canceling “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.” Colbert has been a fierce critic of both Trump and the Paramount-Skydance merger.
Among the dynamics to watch in the month ahead is the escalating fight between Trump and the Wall Street Journal, after the paper reported on a lewd birthday card sent by Trump to the now-deceased child sex offender, Jeffrey Epstein. Invoking tactics that are becoming familiar, Trump excluded a Wall Street Journal reporter from one of his press pools in Scotland, and filed a $10 billion lawsuit against the Journal for defamation.
There is every reason to expect that freedom of the press will remain under threat for the foreseeable future, but the public will only be able to comprehend the scale and severity of the threat if individual developments are explained in reference to the bigger picture. And press freedom is far from the only pillar of a democratic society that is under attack. One could readily imagine running this same exercise to develop “Big Picture Trackers” that help keep track of threats to judicial independence, right to counsel, voting rights, and more.
(For this tracker on press freedom, readers are invited to submit by email any developments that we may have missed.)
(Editor’s Note: This article is part of the Collection: Just Security’s Coverage of the Trump Administration’s Executive Actions. Readers might also be interested in The Just Security Podcast: Keeping Track of the Big Picture–Challenges to Press Freedom and Beyond.)
