USA / Americas

For data on press freedom violations in the U.S., visit the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, a partnership between CPJ and Freedom of the Press Foundation.

Read CPJ’s report On Edge: What the US election could mean for journalists and global press freedom.

  

Idaho attorney files subpoena for testimony of reporter Nate Eaton

Washington, D.C., May 11, 2021 — The Committee to Protect Journalists today expressed concern over a subpoena ordering an Idaho reporter to testify in court, and called on the state’s judiciary not to enforce such an order. Yesterday, Nate Eaton, the news director at the local website EastIdahoNews.com, posted on Twitter an image of a…

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CPJ calls on Biden administration to commit to source protection in wake of Washington Post subpoena revelations

Washington, D.C., May 10, 2021 — The Committee to Protect Journalists today called on the Biden administration to make public why the Justice Department under former President Donald Trump secretly subpoenaed journalists’ phone records, and to commit to respecting journalist and source relationships.  The Justice Department secretly obtained call records from April 15, 2017, to…

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‘Trauma makes its way back to you’: Four US journalists on covering mass shootings

In the photograph published in The Washington Post, a woman kneels on the ground, her hands in her lap, her body bathed in red neon light. She is mourning outside of the Aromatherapy Spa in Atlanta, Georgia, one scene of a mass shooting in March 2021 that killed eight people.  Behind every photograph and news report of a…

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Minnesota law enforcement must stop obstructing journalists covering protests

Washington, D.C., April 19, 2021— Minnesota authorities must respect journalists’ rights and refrain from charging members of the press for doing their jobs, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. On the evening of April 16, law enforcement in Brooklyn Center corralled dozens of journalists along with people demonstrating against the police killing of Duante…

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CPJ calls on local law enforcement in US to ensure journalist safety amid protests

Washington, D.C., April 16, 2020 – The Committee to Protect Journalists today called on law enforcement in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, and around the United States to ensure that journalists can freely and safely cover demonstrations against police violence. “We are deeply concerned by reports about law enforcement detaining members of the media covering protests in…

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CPJ calls on Energy Transfer to drop subpoenas to Unicorn Riot, journalist Niko Georgiades

New York, April 7, 2021—Energy Transfer, the U.S. based company which partially owns the Dakota Access Pipeline, should immediately withdraw its subpoenas seeking unpublished reporting material from U.S. nonprofit media collective Unicorn Riot and from the organization’s reporter, Niko Georgiades, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.   The two subpoenas, filed with a Minnesota district court on…

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CPJ calls on US government to give journalists access to border detention facilities

New York, March 23, 2021 — The United States Department of Homeland Security must allow journalists access to detention facilities and Border Patrol activities along the U.S.- Mexico border, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. In recent weeks, D.H.S. and Border Patrol officials have barred all members of the press from entering detention facilities,…

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The Markup’s Nabiha Syed on how the Supreme Court could protect data journalism

At first glance, the connection between data journalism and a Georgia police officer accused of accessing a government database for an improper purpose might seem tenuous. However, journalists and legal experts have highlighted the press freedom implications of a pending Supreme Court decision in the case of the officer, Nathan Van Buren, who is appealing…

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Iowa journalist Andrea Sahouri acquitted on misdemeanor charges from 2020 protest coverage

New York, March 10, 2021 — In response to today’s acquittal of Des Moines Register reporter Andrea Sahouri by a court in Polk County, Iowa, on two misdemeanor charges stemming from her coverage of protests last year, the Committee to Protect Journalists issued the following statement: “The acquittal of journalist Andrea Sahouri in Iowa today…

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New York Times journalist Nicole Perlroth on the secret trade in tools used to hack the press

The last time New York Times cybersecurity journalist Nicole Perlroth spoke with Emirati activist Ahmed Mansoor in 2016, his passport had been taken and he had recently been beaten almost to the point of death. “We learned later on that our phone conversation had been tapped, that someone was in his baby monitor, that his…

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