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  "description": "The Washington Post’s recent layoffs and censorship mark a significant decline in American press freedom as the Trump administration intensifies legal and physical pressure on journalists.",
  "path": "/2026/02/12/democracy-dies-in-broad-daylight-the-trump-administrations-frontal-assault-on-the-free-press/",
  "publishedAt": "2026-02-12T01:05:00.000Z",
  "site": "https://www.europeans.today",
  "tags": [
    "THE WHITE HOUSE",
    "USA: Press freedom index and latest reports",
    "Washington Post faces outcry over refusal to endorse candidate",
    "The Trump Administration and the Media",
    "Post Subscribers Cancel in Waves After Endorsement Decision",
    "The systemic threat to American journalism",
    "New administration tightens grip on White House press pool",
    "The rise of 'Lawfare' against US newsrooms",
    "The Conversation",
    "The White House",
    "Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License"
  ],
  "textContent": "**What you need to know**\n\n🔹 The Washington Post has laid off one third of editorial staff.\n🔹 Owner Jeff Bezos faced criticism for ending long-standing presidential endorsements.\n🔹 Donald Trump’s second term features intensified hostility toward mainstream media outlets.\n🔹 Press freedom faces threats from restricted access and mounting legal pressures.\n\nWhen the billionaire owner of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, bought the _Washington Post_ from the Graham family in 2013, he promised _“a golden era to come”_. In February 2017, one month into Donald Trump’s first term as US president, the paper adopted the motto: _“Democracy Dies in Darkness”_ , reflecting the perceived threat posed by Trump’s authoritarian leanings and the suggestion that Moscow had interfered in the 2016 election.\n\nThat motto was turned against Bezos last week when it was announced that the _Post_ was laying off one-third of its editorial staff, including its sports section and several of its foreign bureaus. The news was greeted with dismay in America’s journalistic circles. Marty Baron, a celebrated former executive editor of the _Post_ , called the layoffs _“among the darkest days in the history of one of the world’s greatest news organisations”_.\n\nBut in the years since Bezos acquired the _Post_ it has become a symbol of a global wave of democratic backsliding in the US which accelerated as the prospect of a second Trump presidency grew through 2024. After an initial period of investing in the _Post_ and hiring more reporters, he has now overseen a long period of decline.\n\nPolitical concerns began seriously to mount in 2024 when, in the run up to that year’s presidential election, the newspaper broke a 36-year precedent by refusing to endorse a candidate (which most readers, given the paper’s traditionally liberal leanings, had assumed would be Democrat Kamala Harris).\n\nSince Trump has returned to the White House further evidence of this backsliding at the _Post_ includes suppression of a cartoon critical of Trump’s relationship with US tech oligarchs by the Pulitzer Prize winning artist Ann Telnaes and a refocusing of the opinion pages to centre them on _“personal liberties and free markets”_. The changes have reportedly cost the _Post_ many thousands of subscribers.\n\nDuring his first term, Trump branded mainstream media outlets “the enemy of the people”. | FLICKR/THE WHITE HOUSE\n\nBut the malaise in US journalism is a much broader story than just the travails of the _Washington Post_. There’s a sustained campaign of cultural and structural violence against a profession that is under economic and political strain, yet essential to democracy.\n\nTrump’s hostility toward certain sections of the press is not new. During his first term he used non-journalistic platforms to brand mainstream media outlets _“the enemy of the people”_. His hostility was directed at both institutional and personal level, launching attacks against individual journalists and their employers (the _“failing New York Times”_ , his clash with _CNN_ ’s Jim Acosta, etc).\n\nIn his second term this hostility has intensified, its impact often obscured by the rapid pace of news emanating from the White House. We’re seeing press freedom in the US under attack on three distinct fronts: restricted access to information, threats to the safety of journalists and use of legal pressure to discourage dissenting voices.\n\n##### Controlling the message\n\nRestrictions began as soon as Trump was inaugurated for his second term in January 2025. Within a month, the _Associated Press_ lost access to the Oval Office and Air Force One (in other words, to direct contact with the president) after refusing to adopt an executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico the _“Gulf of America”_.\n\nAccreditation rules soon tightened. In October, the newly minted secretary of war Pete Hegseth announced that henceforth journalists reporting from inside the Pentagon would be allowed to only report official government pronouncements. Many mainstream reporters handed back their Pentagon accreditation in protest. In response, Hegseth announced what he called the _“next generation of the Pentagon press corps”_ , mainly comprising journalist from far-right outlets.\n\nMeanwhile the president’s verbal attacks on journalists have escalated, particularly targeting women and especially women of colour. Incidents such as the _“quiet Piggy”_ remark (directed at _Bloomberg_ journalist Catherine Lucey) exemplify a broader pattern of public humiliation of female journalists. Research suggests that such conduct contributes to the normalisation of hostility toward female journalists, who were already disproportionately quitting journalism.\n\nJournalists covering protests also face heightened risks. During the _“no kings”_ demonstrations in October 2025, multiple incidents were reported in which police used force against accredited reporters. In November 2025 the White House escalated the pressure, launching a _“Hall of Shame”_ site naming journalists and outlets it said had misrepresented the administration.\n\n##### ‘Lawfare’\n\nThe Trump administration has also brought considerable legal pressure to bear on the news media over the first year of its second term. The US president has filed multiple lawsuits alleging bias on the part of one or another media organisation that had attracted his disfavour.\n\nIn July, _Paramount_ reached a US$16 million (£11.69 million) settlement over a _60 Minutes_ interview with Kamala Harris in 2024 that the president accused of bias. At stake was a US$8.4 billion merger that required approval from the Federal Communications Commission, a public body headed by Trump loyalist Brendan Carr.\n\nThe president also has active suits against the _Wall Street Journal_ and the _BBC_ (an episode which led to the resignation of director general, Tim Davie, and its head of news, Deborah Turness). By the middle of 2025, _Axios_ reported that Trump-related media and defamation suits had already matched the annual historical record.\n\n##### Democratic backsliding\n\nTaken together, these developments reflect a broader pattern of institutional stress affecting US democratic structures. The pressure on these established media organisations has created a situation in which they manage to survive with their independence eroded.\n\nComparative research consistently demonstrates that journalists are among the first actors targeted in such processes because of their frontline work. Control over information remains central to the success of an authoritarian government.\n\nWhat, then, should journalists and media organisations do? Standing together matters. We saw that in 2018, when about 350 American newspapers jointly defended press independence against Trump’s _“fake news”_ attacks. This prompted the US Senate to adopt a resolution supporting a free press and declaring that _“the press is not the enemy of the people”_.\n\nBut the danger is that this structural violence against the news media and its attempt to hold power to account becomes normalised. If the Trump administration’s contempt for the fourth estate continues to percolate through to the public at large, a population already struggling to tell truth from lies will be further blindfolded and darkness will fall over American democracy.\n\n### **GOING FURTHER**\n\n  * ######  USA: Press freedom index and latest reports | REPORTERS WITHOUT BORDERS\n\n  * ######  Washington Post faces outcry over refusal to endorse candidate | THE GUARDIAN\n\n  * ######  The Trump Administration and the Media | COMMITTEE TO PROTECT JOURNALISTS\n\n  * ######  Post Subscribers Cancel in Waves After Endorsement Decision | THE NEW YORK TIMES\n\n  * ######  The systemic threat to American journalism | COLUMBIA JOURNALISM REVIEW\n\n  * ######  New administration tightens grip on White House press pool | NPR\n\n  * ######  The rise of 'Lawfare' against US newsrooms | POYNTER INSTITUTE\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n* * *\n\n#### **Sources:**\n\n###### ▪ This piece was originally published in The Conversation and re-published in Europeans TODAY on 12 February 2026. | The authors write in a personal capacity.\n\n###### ▪ **Cover:** Flickr/The White House. (Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.)\n\n\n\n\n* * *\n\n\n",
  "title": "Democracy dies in broad daylight: The Trump administration’s frontal assault on the free press",
  "updatedAt": "2026-02-12T13:01:24.859Z"
}