Censorship during wartime is hardly new. Anyone who took social studies during high school may remember the Alien and Sedition Acts, circa 1798 (which outraged, among other freedom-loving patriots, Thomas Jefferson himself); during college you may have read about World War I-era government attempts to maintain a unified national morale by encouraging the press to censor itself; or perhaps you are old enough to recall the “Five O’Clock Follies” during the Vietnam War, as the consistently dubious and reliable press briefings held daily in Saigon were sarcastically called.
What is different at this moment are the bully methods being used to bring the free press in line — the cudgels being hammered down on the networks, the reporters, and the newspapers who dare to question the party line about the war in Iran. To borrow some words from the A.P. this week: “Through lectures, scoldings and outright threats, President Donald Trump and his aides are ratcheting up the pressure on journalists to cover the war in the Middle East the way the administration wants.”
It’s not just gross personal insults on Air Force One. (Reporters are tough and, in the line of duty, can take it.) One more serious mechanism of control being employed is to deny news outlets access to press briefings. Another is to threaten news outlets with deregulation.
Case in point: The strange rules change after a March 2 Pentagon press briefing resulted in photographs of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that the secretary reportedly considered unflattering. Photographers have not been invited back to Pentagon press briefings on the war since. The Pentagon’s press secretary, Kingsley Wilson, said the ban was about using briefing-room space “effectively” and that official photos would be posted online, but the banned journalists are dubious. Mr. Hegseth has been offering or denying access to information from the Defense Department like a mafia don in a Scorsese movie alternately offering favors or banishment depending on the level of sycophancy detected. This is un-American. Photographers need to be present to take real-time photographs during the events, to create a full public record.
Another instance of escalating pressure is the threat of broadcast deregulation. The government’s top media regulator, Brendan Carr at the Federal Communications Commission, has warned that broadcasters risk losing their licenses if they don’t stay away from “fake news.” According to reporting in The Guardian, the F.C.C. is actively reviewing the broadcast licenses of news organizations whose reporting on the war is considers unpatriotic — and is doing so with the president’s enthusiastic backing.
We applaud the members of Congress from both parties who clapped back in rebuke at these threats. But, Republican or Democrat or unaffiliated, we all should be deeply concerned. After all, we have learned nothing over the last eight years if not that when the Trump administration promises vindictive vengeance, that is one promise it will attempt to keep.
Punishing disfavored outlets, demonizing critical journalists, restricting access, and trying to replace independent reporting with friendlier or more dependent media? These are all clarion-clear hallmarks of authoritarian government. Just look to Russia, Belarus, and Viktor Orban’s Hungary. One Hungarian media analyst, Gábor Polyák, was quoted in The Guardian last fall voicing words of warning: “There is a very strange kind of self-censorship in America,” he said. “Even with European eyes, it is very frightening to see to what degree individual bravery does not exist. From Zuckerberg to ABC, everyone immediately surrenders.”
Readers, do you surrender? We know you do not. And we do not. Long live independent journalism and the free press.