The International Press Institute (IPI) today launches “Capture and control”, a timeline documenting and tracking efforts by the current Trump administration to expand executive control over the U.S. media.
This timeline presents monitoring data collected by IPI on key developments or actions undertaken by U.S. President Donald Trump, members of his administration, and corporate allies that risk or threaten the independence of the country’s news media. The dataset currently contains 88 entries, covering the time period of November 6, 2024 to September 21, 2026.
The timeline and dataset are available for download. Both will be regularly updated to include new cases as they develop.
A free press is both the anchor and engine of U.S. democracy — so central to the nation’s “great experiment” of self-government that its protection is codified in the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. That experiment rests on the idea that citizens have the right to govern themselves. For this system of self-government to succeed, the public needs access to reliable, independent information so they can make informed choices and assess the actions of individuals and institutions entrusted with power.
Yet today, the free press in the United States is under immense pressure, as Trump and his allies aggressively seek to reshape the U.S. media to prioritise loyalty and stifle critical reporting.
“In the past, the U.S. media have certainly faced moments of pressure from presidents and powerful elites. But the current threats to the free press in the United States are profoundly alarming and unprecedented in their scope and force in IPI’s more than seven decades of monitoring press freedom in the country,” IPI Executive Director Scott Griffen said.
Since its founding in 1950, IPI has tracked and documented threats to the free press all over the world. The organisation closely monitors actions by governments and their allies to censor, capture, and control the press — and uses this data as the basis of its work advocating for the rights of journalists and the free flow of independent news and information wherever these rights are threatened.