How Trump Is Wielding Power to Stifle Speech
The Times documents the Justice Department sending FBI agents to reporters’ homes with subpoenas and, in one case, a warrant used to seize devices; the Pentagon firing the leadership of Stars and Stripes and restricting other journalists’ access; the FCC opening investigations into broadcasters; the FTC investigating media-monitoring groups; cuts to public-broadcasting funding; White House control over the presidential press pool; and Trump personally suing news organisations. ### Pressure without a court victory What makes the mechanism interesting is that Trump does not necessarily have to win these fights. Courts have repeatedly stopped or criticised administration actions. A federal judge called the FTC investigation of Media Matters a “straightforward First Amendment violation,” for example. But Media Matters says it nevertheless self-censored while fighting the investigation. ABC says fear of FCC retaliation caused it to broadcast a Trump speech it otherwise would not have carried and avoid certain guests and clips on The View. Skydance agreed to abolish CBS diversity policies and install a news-bias monitor while seeking FCC approval for its Paramount acquisition. ### The administration’s case The administration’s counterargument is worth taking seriously: it says broadcasters and media organisations accumulated enormous unaccountable power, conservatives were disadvantaged by previous government pressure on social platforms, and regulators are enforcing existing public-interest obligations rather than censoring anyone. Courts remain a substantial check. But that does not fully answer the Times’s central point: if initiating an investigation is itself expensive enough to alter editorial behaviour, losing the eventual court case does not undo the chilling effect.…
