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President Donald Trump took another step against the American media on Thursday, May 1, 2025, when he signed an executive order seeking to reduce funding to NPR and PBS.
Both competitors have already said that Trump’s efforts to reduce such financing will have a “devastating effect” on American citizens who rely on them because of reliable local and national news – including during emergency situations.
From an attempt to the vote of the American bowel (VOA) to prevent the Associated Press from the Oval Office, Trump The administration and its allies had the American press at their intersection.
Some Trump attacks began on the press even before winning the White House. Trump sued CBS before the 2024 presidential elections to edit an interview with his competing Kamala Harris in an unfavorable way.
He also filed a lawsuit against a newspaper in Iowa, and de Moen and J Harris Trump’s leadership in the presidential race in the country.
These cases are continuing.
Small victories
But some ports resist and record some victories.
Trump’s federal judge has ordered the return of VOA financing and the return of the international broadcaster’s employees and contractors. More than 1,000 of them were suspended after the president signed an executive order to dismantle the parent company VOA, the USAAAGM (USAGM).
A court also stood beside the AP in a lawsuit to restore arrival after being banned from the Oval Office because of its refusal to refer to the Gulf of Mexico in the name of “The Gulf of America”. President Trump insisted on referring to the waterway as the last. In a decision on April 8, the American provincial judge spent Trevor N. In addition, the ban violated the rights of the first amendment to serve the wires. The Trump administration said it would appeal the ruling.
Under the constitution of the United States, the first amendment provides for the protection of the basic freedoms of religion, speech, press, assembly and contact.
But freedom of expression calls for caution that although these freedoms are shown in the US constitution, Trump’s free press campaign shows that the first amendment requires an active defense.
Who will speak?
“Regardless of the extent of the wonderful protection of the first amendment and the decisions of the Supreme Court that support the first amendment in principle, it is not a self -assumption,” said Nadine Straussen, an older colleague at the Foundation for Rights and Individual Expression. “It requires lawyers to defend the courts to support and impose the first amendment rights, and when you have lawyers that are intimidated by pods lock with the Trump administration, because they can get them out of work, and this is very frightening.”
President Trump has signed a series of executive orders that in particular target law firms that he considered “risks”, most of which are to punish them for the employment of lawyers involved in investigating previous cases against Trump, to defend people or the reasons that Trump opposes ideological – such as diversity, fair and inclusion programs. This can lead to the deportation of the ranks of those who want to go to the soles of the feet with the Trump administration to stand against violations of freedom of expression.
But legal asylum will become more necessary, as Trump refers to more moves against the next free press.
On April 14, an article in the White House seemed to target the public -funded broadcasters. He said, “For years, American taxpayers were on a hook to support the National Public Radio (NPR) and the public broadcasting service (PBS), which published the roots, the propaganda woke up disguising it as” news. “
The Trump administration is expected to broadcast a memorandum to prevent federal funding for NPR and CBS in the coming weeks.
Control of narration
For the NPR media correspondent, Trump’s moves to close the outlets of the public are in line with his broader strategy of ensuring his public narration.
The idea that taxpayers ’money is that government money will go to support the news outlet that seeks to submit a verified and independent reports with its editorial ruling is an insult to the idea that in some way that [Trump] It controls every message, controls every news cycle, and controls every editorial judgment, “said Folkenflik.
But monitoring press freedom says that government control over messages is inconsistent with the practice of democracy in society.
He said, “It is a principle that you find that people do not really want to talk about it, or they do not get the reason for its association with them, until they are threatened by targeting, silence, or shook forever. Nora BenavidesWho leads democracy initiatives in Free Press, a non -profit institution devoted to the defense of freedom of the press.
Benavidez warns that a mixture of non -commitment to facts, and the deprivation of the media creates additional confusion and space for abuse and misinformation, threatening comprehensive democratic stability. It is the Trump administration, as well as the head of the organization’s former White House office.
Voa is often one of the few sources of unnoticed news in countries that have repressive governments, as in Iran, Russia, Plasia, Afghanistan and North Korea.
There are also very personal implications for the Trump administration’s movements.
The contract employee said on the basis of the contract, that the non -American employees who had to leave the United States after losing their jobs in VOA and their working visas may face once in their countries of origin. Talk to DW anonymously out of interest in potential revenge.
“There are many journalists who came to Voa because of their promise to practice freedom of the press in a constitutional guaranteed country,” he said. “Many of these journalists are not citizens, and they are in danger if they are forced to return to their countries of origin. They face prison or even worse if they should leave this country.”
“I hope there are people in high places, as well as the normal voter, [who] “He will defend freedom of the press constitutionally,” said a contractor.
