Censorship is bad for business

Dear Friend of Press Freedom,

Government lawyers are lying to courts to justify attacks on reporters covering immigration. Meanwhile, immigrant journalists like Ya’akub Vijandre remain locked up by Immigration and Customs Enforcement for exercising their rights. And corporate capitulators are looking to take over more news outlets to help the administration cover all of it up. Read on for more.

More news holdings for Paramount harms press freedom — and the bottom line

Netflix has reportedly declined to increase its bid for Warner Bros. Discovery after Warner deemed Paramount’s latest competing bid superior. That paves the way for Paramount, led by Donald Trump ally David Ellison, to take over Warner and its media holdings, including CNN and HBO.

We said in a statement that Paramount boss Ellison “will readily throw the First Amendment, CNN’s reporters, and HBO’s filmmakers under the bus if they stand in the way of expanding his corporate empire and fattening his pockets. But censorship is bad for business. ... Selling companies that depend on the First Amendment to a censorial White House puppet is not only morally wrong but harmful to their bottom line.”

Order restricting Natanson search didn’t go far enough

Judge William Porter imposed significant restrictions on the government’s ability to search materials seized from Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson during the raid of her home last month. He also made clear his displeasure with prosecutors’ omission of any mention of the Privacy Protection Act of 1980 — which prohibits searches of reporters’ materials in most circumstances — from their warrant application.

Porter was right to treat the seizure as a prior restraint and to limit the government from fishing through the irrelevant data it seized to snoop on reporters. He is also right to reprimand prosecutor Gordon Kromberg and his team for failing to disclose the Privacy Protection Act.

But the order didn’t go far enough. Porter should have required all of Natanson’s materials seized pursuant to the deceptive warrant application to be returned to her. And he should not have credited the administration’s claims that any of the seized materials posed a national security threat without strict proof, because the administration has earned zero deference from the judiciary on claims of national security threats.

We also updated and resubmitted our attorney disciplinary complaint against Kromberg — which the Virginia Bar previously punted to the courts — in light of Porter’s ruling.

Government lawyers: Don’t make up terrorist attacks

Speaking of attorney disciplinary complaints, our latest one is against Sean Skedzielewski, who defended the government in lawsuits to stop ICE abuses of protesters and journalists in Los Angeles and Chicago. In the Chicago case, he told the judge that “violent terrorist organizations” were attacking federal agents in “riots” and exposing their families to danger through “doxing.”

All of that is complete nonsense. It shouldn’t be a heavy lift to convince an attorney disciplinary office that it’s unethical for government lawyers to make up a terrorist attack on America’s third-largest city to justify the violent suppression of First Amendment rights. But considering the spinelessness of those offices these days, the complaint may prove to be a long shot.

Learn how to FOIA from the pros

FPF hosted a webinar this week to spotlight how journalists and transparency advocates use both local and federal public records requests to pry loose what the government would rather keep secret.

We spoke with Mukta Joshi, an investigative journalist for Mississippi Today and a fellow at The New York Times, whose reporting has uncovered abuse within the Mississippi jail system; Matt Scott, the executive director at the Atlanta Community Press Collective, who has used public records to report on the Atlanta Police Department’s “Cop City”; and Lauren Harper, our Daniel Ellsberg chair on government secrecy, who regularly advocates for improved transparency laws. FPF Senior Adviser Caitlin Vogus moderated the panel.

Find us on YouTube and Instagram

In addition to the webinars we regularly host, we’ve also significantly increased our short-form video output in 2026, including weekly wrap-ups of press freedom news from our Executive Director Trevor Timm, and other topical clips. Follow us on Instagram for the latest videos.