Press freedom in the US has fallen to its lowest degree since Reporters With out Borders (also called Reporters Sans Frontières or RSF) started publishing its annual rating greater than 20 years in the past, with President Donald Trump’s return to energy “tremendously exacerbating the scenario,” RSF mentioned Friday.
The U.S. fell from 55th to 57th place on RSF’s World Press Freedom Index, marking the second straight yr that the scenario within the nation which lists freedom of the press first in its Invoice of Rights has been categorised as “problematic.” The report comes forward of World Press Freedom Day on Could 3.
The U.S. has been trending downward on RSF’s index since 2013, when it ranked thirty second in world press freedom. A decade later, it had fallen to forty fifth place earlier than plunging to fifty fifth place final yr amid Trump’s assaults on the media.
“Trump was elected to a second time period after a marketing campaign through which he denigrated the press every day and made express threats to weaponize the federal authorities in opposition to the media,” the report states.
Press freedom in the US has hit a document low, in line with the most recent World Press Freedom Index revealed yearly by Reporters With out Borders.
— Axios (@axios.com) May 1, 2025 at 9:03 PM
“His early strikes in his second mandate to politicize the Federal Communications Fee (FCC), ban The Related Press from the White Home, or dismantle the U.S. Company for International Media, for instance, have jeopardized the nation’s information shops and point out that he intends to comply with via on his threats, establishing a possible disaster for American journalism,” the publication continues, accusing Trump of utilizing “false financial pretexts” to “carry the press into line.”
“The First Modification to the U.S. Structure offers broad protections for the press. Nevertheless, no significant press freedom laws has been handed on the nationwide degree in recent times regardless of the nation’s constant slide on the Press Freedom Index,” the report notes. “The PRESS Act, a federal protect regulation, didn’t move for a second successive time in 2024. Greater than a dozen states and communities have proposed or enacted legal guidelines to restrict journalists’ entry to public areas, together with barring them from legislative conferences and stopping them from recording the police.”
RSF continued:
Financial constraints have a substantial influence on journalists. Roughly one-third of the American newspapers working in 2005 have now shuttered. Whereas some public media shops, and radio stations particularly, have been capable of offset this decline due to on-line subscription fashions, others have discovered methods to maintain development via particular person donations. Large waves of layoffs swept the U.S. media all through 2023 and 2024 and have continued into 2025, affecting each native newsrooms and main legacy shops. Many elements of the nation at the moment are thought-about information deserts, with the disappearance of native information shops reaching disaster ranges. Since 2022, greater than 8,000 journalists have been laid off within the U.S.
Moreover, “extra People haven’t any belief within the media than belief it a good quantity. On-line harassment, significantly in the direction of ladies and minorities, can be a severe situation for journalists and may influence their high quality of life and security.”
“Politicians’ open disdain for the media has trickled right down to the general public,” RSF added. “Journalists reporting on the bottom can face harassment, intimidation, and assault whereas working. When overlaying demonstrations, journalists are generally attacked and bodily assaulted by protestors or wrongfully arrested by police. According to the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, there have been 49 journalist arrests in 2024 in comparison with solely 15 in 2023. The final journalist to be killed in the midst of his work was Dylan Lyons in February of 2023.”
RSF paints a grim image for journalism all over the world.
“The circumstances for practising journalism are dangerous in half of the world’s international locations,” as “lower than 1% of the world’s inhabitants lives in a rustic the place press freedom is absolutely assured,” the report states.
Noting that financial self-sufficiency is crucial to a free press, RSF editorial director Anne Bocandé mentioned in an announcement that “guaranteeing freedom, independence, and plurality in immediately’s media panorama requires steady and clear monetary circumstances.”
“With out financial independence, there will be no free press,” Bocandé continued. “When information media are financially strained, they’re drawn right into a race to draw audiences on the expense of high quality reporting, and may fall prey to the oligarchs and public authorities who search to use them. When journalists are impoverished, they now not have the means to withstand the enemies of the press — those that champion disinformation and propaganda.”
“The media financial system should urgently be restored to a state that’s conducive to journalism and ensures the manufacturing of dependable data, which is inherently pricey,” she added. “Options exist and should be deployed on a big scale. The media’s monetary independence is a crucial situation for making certain free, reliable data that serves the general public curiosity.”
RSF’s new rankings come days after U.S. Lawyer Basic Pam Bondi ended a Biden administration coverage that strictly restricted the Justice Division’s authority to grab journalists’ information and compel them to testify in leak investigations.
On Wednesday, the Committee to Shield Journalists (CPJ) revealed a report on Trump’s first 100 days in workplace, which the group mentioned have been “marked by a flurry of govt actions which have created a chilling impact and have the potential to curtail media freedoms.”
“It’s disturbing that, on the eve of #WorldPressFreedomDay, the Trump administration has dealt main blows to journalists and the general public they serve.” — Katherine Jacobsen, CPJ’s U.S., Canada, and Caribbean program coordinator
— Committee to Shield Journalists (@pressfreedom.bsky.social) May 2, 2025 at 9:09 AM
“From denying entry to upending respect for the independence of a free press to vilifying information organizations to threatening reprisals, this administration has begun to exert its energy to punish or reward based mostly on protection,” CPJ mentioned. “Whether or not within the states or on the streets, this conduct is setting a brand new commonplace for a way the general public can deal with journalists.”
“The uncertainty and concern ensuing from these actions have precipitated requests for security recommendation to extend as journalists and newsrooms intention to organize for what may be subsequent,” the group added. “These strikes characterize a notable escalation from the primary Trump administration, which additionally pursued banning and deriding parts of the press. After almost a decade of repeating insults and falsehoods, and submitting lawsuits, Trump has normalized disdain for media to an alarming diploma.”
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