In recent days, there has been an uptake in attacks on press freedom from The Trump administration’s actions like barring the Associated Press from some White House events, choosing specific reporters to be in the press pool, filing lawsuits intended to dissuade critics from saying negative things (SLAPP), and suing news organizations result in intimidate journalists and silence freedom of expression. Grayson Clary is a staff attorney at the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, a nonprofit organization that provides free legal help to journalists, explained the impact. Responses were lightly edited for clarity and length.
What does press freedom mean to you?
Democracy depends on an informed public. An informed public depends on a free press. So the work we do is dedicated to ensuring that the press is free from government interference that would undermine or distort its ability to inform the public on matters of clear public concern and especially about their own government and their own public officials.
Why are President Trump’s actions considered attacks on the press?
One of the most basic premises of the First Amendment is that the government has no power to favor or disfavor any private speaker, whether that’s you, me or a news organization, based on the point of view that we express. What the administration has done so far is say very vocally that they intend to punish news organizations that strike them as unfair, and withhold benefits or impose consequences, which we think is an attack, not just on the First Amendment rights of the particular news organizations that are affected but on the First Amendment premises that protect all of us.
How are Mr. Trump’s actions likely to play out legally?
While some states have laws that protect abusive litigation, not all of them do, and there is no such anti-SLAPP law at the at the federal level, which means it can be very costly to defend one of these cases, even if you’re in the right, even if you did nothing wrong, and even if you’re going to prevail in the end. And so I do think the rising tide of litigation against news organizations for run of the mill coverage, that somebody powerful happens not to like, is having and will have a chilling effect on newsrooms’ willingness, especially small newsrooms, to cover contentious issues.
What do you think the administration stands to gain from attacking the press?
I think you get a stark illustration at that if you look at what the White House press briefings look like now that the White House has moved to seize control of the pool process from the White House Correspondents Association, because by asserting the right to punish outlets that anger the president and elevate ones that he prefers, you’ve ended up with an environment where, if you listen to those press availabilities now, often there’s as much flattery of the president from particular speakers who want to be in his good graces as there are questions that are actually likely to inform the American public. Exactly what you lose out on is that genuine flow of information to the public when it creates an environment where stepping out of line or drawing the president’s displeasure gets you kicked out entirely.
What should the public be concerned about right now?
I think it’s easy to take for granted — in a world where we have so much access to speech, so many opportunities to hear from folks on social media, access to more sources than ever before — the kind of reliable, authoritative, challenging, high quality investigative journalism about your government, whether it’s your federal government, your local government, your state government. I think we should all be worried about the information environment we’d be left with if no one can afford to do that journalism because they’ve been bankrupted by a libel lawsuit or outlets are too afraid to do that journalism because the threat of some kind of government retaliation is hanging over their heads.
From a legal standpoint, is there anything journalists should do as their next steps?
They should reach out to our hotline if they have legal questions. You know, I think I’ve always liked the slogan that Marty Baron, the former editor-in-chief of The Washington Post had, which is, “We’re not at war, we’re at work.”. Sort of,, keep on doing what you got into this line of business to do, regardless of the threats that might get thrown your way. And so we hope newsrooms will keep on doing the good work that the First Amendment assigns them, and we’ll try to be as helpful as we can in supporting that.
