This IPI timeline documents and tracks efforts by the current Trump administration to expand executive control over the U.S. media through targeted political and market pressure.

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 U.S. President Donald Trump and his allies aggressively seek to reshape the American media to prioritize loyalty and stifle critical reporting. While presidents and powerful elites have attempted to constrain the press throughout U.S. history, the current threats to the free press in the United States are unprecedented in their scope and force in IPI’s more than seven decades of monitoring press freedom in the country.

Since our founding in 1950, IPI has tracked and documented threats to the free press in countries all over the world. We closely monitor actions by governments and their allies to censor, capture, and control the press — and use this data as the basis of our work advocating for the rights of journalists and the free flow of independent news and information wherever these rights are threatened.