Jan. 6, 2021
During the storming of the Capitol, at least 18 journalists reported being assaulted. Some of the reports say rioters and law enforcement officials targeted journalists.
March 23, 2021
The Department of Homeland Security and border patrol officials denied members of the press access to detention facilities that housed unaccompanied migrant children.
Journalists said they could no longer go on ride-alongs with patrol agents, and that they had been “physically blocked” at the Rio Grande riverbank, a known point of access used during previous administrations.
Feb. 11, 2025
The White House blocked the Associated Press from the Oval Office when its journalists continued to refer to “the Gulf of Mexico” rather than follow the administration’s stance that it is “the Gulf of America.”
The AP said the news agency decided against adopting “the Gulf of America” because of the centuries-long history behind that name and the fact that Mexico and other international organizations did not recognize the change.
May 1, 2025
The White House issued an executive order to cease federal funding for National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service.
NPR and PBS receive funding via taxpayer dollars through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which outlines in its governing statute that it may not “contribute to or otherwise support any political party.” The executive order wrote that by funding NPR and PBS, CPB does not follow this principle.
The White House further stated that media outlets do not have a constitutional right to taxpayer subsidies and that it is the government’s responsibility to determine which categories of activities to subsidize.
Oct. 15, 2025
Journalists walked out of the Pentagon rather than agree to new rules set by Secretary of Defense Pete
Hesgeth.
These rules would have restricted where journalists could move within the Pentagon without an official escort, as well as kept them from reporting on information not approved for official release — even unclassified information.
“Limiting the media’s ability to report on the U.S. military fails to honor the American families who have entrusted their sons and daughters to serve in it, or the taxpayers responsible for giving the department hundreds of billions of dollars a year,” the Pentagon Press Association said in a statement. “The American people deserve to know how their military is being run.”
