FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
New York, July 10, 2026 — A New Jersey court partially upheld a prior restraint against a community newspaper and vastly extended it to apply to all members of the “press,” in a troubling new order issued on July 9.
Judge Thomas McCloskey had previously granted an emergency order that required New Brunswick Today to remove from its YouTube channel a security video from a local high school that it received from a confidential source and to refrain from writing about the video.
The video showed a school security guard confronting a student who tried to pass through metal detectors with an airsoft BB gun, causing the school to go into lockdown. The court’s previous order also prohibited the newspaper from publishing any other school security videos.
In a July 9 order, McCloskey refused to lift the prior restraint entirely, though he limited it in some respects. The order allows New Brunswick Today to publish and write about the video at issue, but only if it redacts the faces and other identifying information of minors from the video and refrains from identifying them in writing.
The order also requires New Brunswick Today to submit the redacted recording to the school district and court for approval before publication.
Most troublingly, the court also significantly broadened the prior restraint to apply to all members of “the press.” The July 9 order prohibits “the press” in general from publishing the video without redacting the identity of juveniles or including identifying information of juveniles when writing about the video.
The following statement can be attributed to Caitlin Vogus, Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) senior adviser for advocacy:
“Forcing news outlets to delete or withhold information and to submit their work for government approval before they can publish is censorship, full stop.
“The First Amendment could not be clearer: Prior restraints are almost never allowed. Neither judges nor the law can censor the press. Yet that is exactly what Judge McCloskey’s order permits.
“Judge McCloskey was right to narrow his order against New Brunswick Today, but it’s outrageous that he’s extended it to purport to apply to any member of the press who wants to publish or write about this video. Judges should know better. By substituting the court’s judgment about what to publish for that of any news outlet, the court has flatly defied the First Amendment and decades of Supreme Court precedent.
“Even in cases that don’t involve core First Amendment concerns, judges aren’t kings — they have no authority to issue orders binding unidentified journalists across the country who aren’t in their courtroom or parties to any case before them.
“Similar orders have been overturned across the country. If New Brunswick Today appeals and higher courts faithfully apply the law, this one should be as well.”
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