After years of gradual expansion of press rights, the inauguration of the 45th and 47th U.S. President, Donald Trump, has exacerbated the uptick in threats toward journalists. Just during Trump’s second term, the president has passed 215 executive orders, a significant proportion of which harm the First Amendment: an amendment that protects fundamental freedoms, including the journalistic freedom of speech. As NC students prepare for adulthood and turn 18, understanding one’s rights as an American citizen, including the protection of the First Amendment, becomes vital. Students should strive to understand how this amendment must also protect the voices of journalists who selflessly create the news they report. While laws and amendments progress, the state of the press continues to face jeopardizing pressures under the Trump Administration.
“There has always been a tumultuous and tension-filled relationship between the press and the presidency, or just people in power in general. And that’s not a bug, it’s a feature. One of the key purposes of journalism is to hold people in power to account, and so the fact that the president and the press are not friends is not a problem. I feel like if they were, we’d be living in a totalitarian regime where the press is just an arm of those in power,” University of Georgia’s College of Journalism Clinical Associate Professor of Journalism Amanda Bright, Ph.D. said.
As the administration settles in, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) remains one of the various organizations impacted by Trump. The FCC regulates all interstate and international communications, including well-known news outlets, throughout the U.S. and its territories under the leadership of Chairman Brendan Carr. These outlets include the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS), the National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). Alongside Trump’s governance, Carr works to find techniques, critics deem as micromanaging and as coercive content controlling, to vigorously needle through corporate decisions the FCC disagrees with. Commission votes allow input from the public as the board’s proposed rules face collaborative discussion before the final vote takes place.
As the FCC changes its motives, new investigations have arisen against several major news channels. As of November 19, 2025, Carr and President Trump have targeted nine outlets, notably excluding Fox News since Rupert Murdoch, a close ally of Trump, remains a key figure of the corporation. For example, the organization launched an investigation February 2025 against a San Francisco-based radio station, KCBS, due to its publishing of information about an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) incursion. The outlet previously reported a gathering in front of city hall, which was planned to expose this ICE raid that occurred at a downtown San Francisco office building, initially aimed to represent a union of janitors who grew concerned that ICE would detain them at their jobs.
Within both political parties, Americans’ and government officials’ level of trust in the media reveals minimal agreement about which news outlets prove worthy to consume. A survey administered by the Pew Research Center discovered that the political polarization throughout the U.S. has placed the parties in differing media silos; this division leads the parties to rely on their rarely intersecting news outlets. These outlets report on news from different angles, leading to opposition between those on opposite sides of the political spectrum.
“There were a lot of us [journalists], and we were known in our communities, and we were liked. Now, we did make mistakes, and not everyone loved us, but this was primarily before the advent of cable news as we know it. And the development of trust issues is kind of brought on by political polarization. More than anything else, people are pulling to the margins instead of being more moderate. So, within the last 15-20 years, it’s slowly eroded to the point where we are often seen as the bad guys in the room instead. There’s still a lot of trust in local news, which is great, but typically we’re not well associated with the national media,” Bright said.
The survey revealed a variety of differences, including that Democrats tend to trust a variety of news organizations while those who lean Republican hold back their trust. In the list of 30 news outlets that the survey questioned interviewees about, both Democrats and Republicans agreed on only two organizations. These outlets, Forbes and The Wall Street Journal, held similar levels of trust between the parties as of July 2025. On the other hand, while the parties only agree on these two organizations, Democrats positively reviewed 23 outlets while Republicans only trusted eight of them. This striking difference showcases the overall ability of the Trump Administration to confide in news outlets around the U.S., revealing how the administration misaligns with the press.
From the varying suspensions of the press, including the “Jimmy Kimmel Live” show’s brief cancellation, to the Pentagon restrictions against reporters, the Trump Administration continues to escalate the president’s motives to reduce the power of those who have spoken out against him. These outlets, and a myriad of other niche organizations, face legal accusations from Trump, leading them to become an addition to his list of political adversaries.
“So here’s the deal. It is easier for reporters to get the news when they’re allowed to walk the halls of the Pentagon, which, by the way, we have a right to do because the Pentagon is a federal agency, and therefore, the reporters have a right to be there because the American people have a right to know what’s going on in there. So is it going to be an impediment? Sure. The news may not get out as quickly, but don’t you think for a moment that the news still won’t get out? The reporters who cover the Pentagon are incredibly good reporters, and they’re not going to shy away from their beats just because they’re not allowed into the building,” University of Georgia’s College of Journalism Narrative Nonfiction MFA program director Moni Basu said.
The current presidential administration exemplifies its desire to eliminate ideas that falsely represent its status by approving orders such as the May 1 executive order named “Ending Taxpayer Subsidization of Biased Media.” This presidential action describes the media as impartial, outdated and corrosive, claiming that news outlets such as PBS and NPR do not hold journalistic integrity up to par. In this case, NPR and PBS lost funds and support from their formerly subsidized parent company, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB). Other news stations face the consequences of the executive order as well, with nearly 1500 media outlets directed under CBS, communities nationwide face the possible danger of losing their ties to the media. For various reasons, radio networks remain the only source of news gathering for certain communities.
Initially, the cut in funding for CBS and its news outlets became spearheaded by remarks from the office, which characterized NPR and PBS press as radically left or as monsters, showcasing the harsh bias from those in charge. These statements from the administration supported the idea that taxpayers should not support the works of the press. Rather than thinking of those who will now lack access to the media, since stations such as KDNA rely on CBS to inform rural, minority communities, the White House is geared toward cutting congressionally appropriated funds. With various rural community news stations facing a period of silence, news outlets, including KSUT and Colorado Public Radio, work together to file a lawsuit against the White House in order to protect their freedom of speech.
Although the current state of the media has encountered harmful attacks, the press is unfortunately accustomed to these experiences. Under the 37th U.S. President Richard Nixon’s Administration, journalists faced similar restrictions after the Watergate scandal in the early 1970s. The intense reactions from Americans influenced the anti-Nixon bias, which flooded the media. This scandal, along with the publishing of the Pentagon Papers in 1971, led Nixon to express his concern toward the press by stating that outlets such as the Washington Post would no longer report from the White House.
“Well, especially the state the government is in right now, they like to hide things that make them look bad, especially in America, and that does a lot of censorship, like toward school shootings, and it makes people more focused on other things. These are important, and they [the government] definitely brush it under the rug to make their political party look better. I think they [journalists] can fight to overcome [these restraints] because they shouldn’t have to put up with it. I think if they want to talk about what they want, then definitely talk about it,” junior NC Panorama member Grier Coats said.
As these issues arise throughout the U.S., Georgia, a state like any other, also encounters the effects of these harsh realities. Atlanta-based Salvadoran journalist, Mario Guevara, who covered an anti-Trump protest June 14, recently experienced a brutal deportation October 2025 despite his legal immigration to the U.S. After receiving charges from DeKalb County Police, including obstructing the police, unlawful assembly and improperly entering a roadway, Guevara forcefully stepped down from his reporting. While government officials eventually dropped these charges, ICE took Guevara into detention after his arrest. To try to avoid situations such as this, Guevara’s responsibility as a journalist led him to apply for asylum in 2012 — before his deportation — since he feared for his safety as a reporter in El Salvador. Unfortunately, the Department of Homeland Security rejected it twice.
“So many countries don’t have anything like a First Amendment, not even the United Kingdom has anything that comes close to our powerful First Amendment. It’s so powerful, and we’ve got to defend that. So journalists have to speak up, and the main thing is that journalists who work for these big media companies, these companies have to stop giving in to the Trump Administration. Law firms, journalism companies, and media companies are just paying off the administration. We can’t give up. We’ve got to keep reporting, and we’ve got to keep doing our job because there’s a lot of wrongdoing going on right now in Washington,” Basu said.
After his initial detention in June, Guevara remained in custody until officials deported him back to El Salvador October 3, 2025. Ultimately, this decision, one that his lawyers argued as violating his constitutional rights, left ICE in control as they claimed he failed to obtain the proper paperwork lined up to protect his stay in the U.S. at the time. The idea of the proper paperwork remains a blurred line since he obtained a valid work visa and press credentials in Georgia. Although Guevara experienced negative interactions while reporting and despite the damage done within his family and his career, Guevara continues to fight as a journalist in El Salvador. In an interview with Fox 5 Atlanta, Guevara explained that ICE initially offered him voluntary deportation, but he stood strong because he preferred to fight for his case; fighting, for him, looked like remaining in jail for 111 days and in solitary confinement for 72 of those days.
“While journalists have constitutional protections that allow them to operate and write/report freely as the press, under the current presidential administration, I think they have been put under strict regulations and censorship. Certain information is being kept from not only us, but also the media, such as the Epstein files. The media and journalists themselves have boycotted the censorship, access to materials and restrictions on reporting, like the walkout of news stations from the Pentagon, which was a big deal,” magnet senior Keazandra Clyne-Verdeflor said.
Times of discrimination in the journalism field, such as with the case of Guevara, lead to the questioning of the current administration and its motives in office. The Trump administration finds itself in a pool of wrongdoings, expressing the first signs of an authoritarian style of government. To combat the struggles journalists currently face, communities and young advocates must stand strong for those who have fought and unfortunately lost the battle against government intervention.
