The U.S. press is in crisis. Beyond the market pressures that have for years now carved newsrooms hollow, external threats — of a physical, rhetorical and legal nature — abound.
The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker found 48 cases of journalists being detained or arrested in 2024 alone. The Tracker also chronicles incidents of assaults on journalists. The recent list includes accounts of a TV reporter in Colorado being tackled and choked outside the station, a California reporter being aggressively grabbed by a sheriff’s deputy while covering a county board meeting, a sports columnist being shoved by a professional basketball player over an unfavorable article, and the list goes on. In Nevada, investigative reporter Jeff German was horrifically murdered by an elected public official who sought revenge for German’s reporting.
Leonard Woolsey knows how these physical and online threats can take a toll on a news organization. Woolsey is the president of Southern Newspapers, the president and publisher of The Daily News in Galveston, Texas, and the president of America’s Newspapers for 2024-2025. “Recently, we had a public official send us a photo of our newspaper with a handgun sitting across our front page,” he told E&P. “We get threats against our reporters, editors and newspapers in volumes never experienced before — and always the result of us reporting truthful facts. And, in each case, our team comes together, takes care of each other, and forges on in the name of our service to the community.
“This happens when your newspaper is engaged with the community and is committed to telling hard truths versus happy news all the time,” he continued. “Our duty is to inform our community, even if those in power find it uncomfortable. At the end of the day, we hold our heads high, knowing our calling as truth-tellers is critical for our communities and nation. Journalists who uphold the tradition of service to their community and use the truth as their beacon are rock stars in my eyes.”
Though Southern Newspapers hasn't had any reporters arrested or detained by police, Woolsey is ready should that happen. “We work closely with an attorney who has ink in his blood. His dad was a former newspaper publisher, and this makes all the difference,” he said.
At Trib Total Media, based in Tarentum, Pennsylvania, the staff has ongoing discussions about how to defend its journalists who may be unlawfully arrested or detained — and about the personal safety of the newsroom team. Jennifer Bertetto, president and CEO, said they have a meeting coming up where they'll talk about the complexities of crime scenes and “high-pressure situations.” She wants to ensure that the team understands their rights, best practices when interacting with law enforcement and appropriate responses to threats of arrest.
Safety is paramount for their reporters, Bertetto stressed.
“A significant concern among our staff is the potential for being identified as members of the media in public, both on and off duty,” she added. “Many have opted to avoid wearing company attire to minimize the risk. To enhance safety measures, we're implementing a buddy system to cover potentially volatile events, like protests or demonstrations. This ensures reporters and photographers work in pairs, minimizing the risk of isolating someone.”
The sting of a SLAPP
Another growing concern for news media publishers is the threat of legal action, particularly “SLAPP” suits. Though meritless by definition, they cost publishers considerably — in time, money and reputation — to defend them.
While there had been some bipartisan support in the last Congress to advance a federal anti-SLAPP bill, its sponsors couldn’t get it across the finish line. However, there are anti-SLAPP laws on the books in 34 states and the District of Columbia. Texas is one, but there is an effort to undermine the law (the Texas Citizens Participation Act) there, with opponents asserting that these cases are clogging up appeals courts’ dockets. Zachary Babo and Gabe Rottman with the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press reviewed the data.
“Relying on data provided by the Texas Judiciary and Westlaw, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press sought to quantitatively analyze the number of TCPA cases considered by Texas courts of appeal and Supreme Court, and the numbers are relatively small. For instance, in the Dallas appeals court from 2011 through 2023, the total number of published opinions referencing the TCPA is 110, slightly more than half a percent (0.56%) of the 19,570 opinions issued by that court during that stretch,” they reported in late December 2024.
As a publisher in Texas, Woolsey advocates for the TCPA. “We fight hard each session to keep this alive and well in Texas. The Texas Press Association’s success in maintaining this as a protection for citizens is impressive,” he reported. “I work with my good and tireless friend Donnis Baggett of the TPA to educate our elected officials on what this protection’s demise would mean to their constituents. We are currently heading into a new session and have a bill being carried to strengthen the TCPA.”
Woolsey said that “rarely does a window of time go by” without someone threatening legal action against the papers and that he’s seen a cultural shift toward a more litigious society.
“As a citizen and publisher, I am concerned with the growing environment of alternate truths,” he reflected. “One has to wonder if people are losing their appetite for facts, instead preferring to interpret and accept information as fits best with their current opinion of a subject. We are in a window where information and opinions are a dime a dozen due to the digital explosion. But conversely, our collective ability to intelligently process and potentially extend empathy appears to be waning. Adding to that is a growing culture where people call their lawyers as soon as they want to defuse information they disagree with — factual or not.
“I am all about being held accountable for the truth, as do those I work alongside at The Daily News, but God help us if the truth is suppressed by our fear of an army of lawyers showing up on our doorstep, akin to a mobster sending in his or her muscle,” Woolsey continued.
“Pennsylvania recently strengthened its protections against SLAPP lawsuits,” Bertetto told E&P. “The new law, modeled after the Uniform Public Expression Protection Act, allows for the early dismissal of these meritless claims. This helps protect journalists, activists, and everyday citizens who may face legal threats when speaking out on matters of public concern.
“While the law provides immediate substantive protections, the full implementation of procedural rules is still underway. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court is currently reviewing proposed changes to the Rules of Civil Procedure to ensure smooth and efficient application of the new law.”
Though larger media enterprises are often the target of libel lawsuits, local publishers are at risk and particularly vulnerable, too.
“Given the recent wave of lawsuits targeting the press, it’s not unreasonable to anticipate similar tactics being employed at the local level. This chilling effect on journalism is deeply concerning and significantly threatens the public's right to know,” Bertetto remarked. She said it feels like retraction demands and threats of legal action are a weekly occurrence.
“Our editors are usually the first point of contact, fielding these requests and attempting to address the concerns. Unfortunately, these conversations can quickly escalate, with the other party becoming agitated and aggressive,” she observed. When a lawsuit is threatened, it triggers the attention of general counsel.
Million-dollar dangers
The past few years have seen a number of high-profile cases involving the press.
FOX News had to pay a massive $787 million settlement to Dominion Voting Systems for the network’s brazen broadcasting of lies about the company’s technologies. Similarly, FOX News is now defending a $2.7 billion suit brought by Smartmatic. Last year, Smartmatic settled suits filed against conservative networks OANN and Newsmax.
In Florida, President Donald J. Trump is suing the Pulitzer Board, including its individual members, for its refusal to rescind Pulitzer Awards given to The Washington Post and The New York Times for reporting on Russian election interference.
ABC News and its parent company, Disney, and host George Stephanopoulos were sued by Trump over remarks Stephanopoulos made on air about the E. Jean Carroll case verdict. The parties settled the case for $15 million, plus another $1 million for the president’s legal fees, with a public apology.
As E&P went to press on this issue, CNN and its lawyers were in a Panama City, Florida trial court, defending a defamation case brought against the network by Zachary Young, a U.S. Navy veteran and security consultant. Young’s suit alleges that CNN defamed him when the network aired a Nov. 21, 2021, segment on “The Lead with Jake Tapper” about “black market” contractors charging upwards of $17,000 to extract desperate Afghans from their war-torn country. Young was personally named in the segment, though he denied the allegations.
Courthouse News Service’s Alex Pickett produced exemplary reporting from the trial, including damning testimony about internal CNN correspondence gained through discovery. The trial’s tone has been foreboding. Pickett reported Kyle Roche, one of Young’s attorneys, told the jury, “You are going to have an opportunity to send a message to mainstream media. You are going to have an opportunity to change an industry.”
(A Florida jury has since found that CNN defamed the Navy veteran.)
There is also the unusual case of a lawsuit filed because of a poll. A few weeks before the 2024 presidential election, The Des Moines Register, a Gannett paper, published a poll by J. Ann Selzer, a veteran pollster. The poll indicated that Vice President Kamala Harris led candidate Donald Trump by three points in Iowa. Trump won in Iowa and was ultimately elected as the 47th President of the United States. Despite the favorable outcome, Trump filed suit against Gannett, the Register and Selzer, exploiting Iowa’s Consumer Fraud Act.
E&P spoke with Bob Corn-Revere, chief counsel at FIRE, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. FIRE has agreed to represent Selzer in her defense. “They’re trying to sue under an Iowa statute prohibiting deception in commercial transactions,” he said. “For example, if someone fraudulently sells you a product or does something like turn back the odometer in a car they’re going to sell you, that’s a deceptive act and practice. This is not something that relates to ‘false news.’”
Gannett petitioned to move the case from the state to the federal court. When E&P spoke with Corn-Revere in mid-January, conversations between counsels were ongoing to determine the timing of responses. He wasn’t at liberty to discuss much about the case, but he vehemently rejected its merit, characterizing it as a textbook SLAPP case.
“FIRE, being committed to defending the First Amendment from all kinds of attacks, thought this would be a good case for us. I want to stress that, as is with our mission, we are completely nonpartisan and non-political. We do not see this as an anti-Trump initiative,” he said. “If any politician — or anyone, frankly — tried to use the courts to suppress speech, that violates the First Amendment. And when you have this kind of litigation abuse, the litigation is the punishment. It imposes burdens, costs and psychic harms on the defendants, which is the point. One of the benefits of being a nonprofit organization, as we are, is that we’re in a position to help lighten those burdens by providing a defense on a pro bono basis.”
In a matter of days after E&P spoke with Corn-Revere, a second lawsuit was filed against Gannett, The Des Moines Register and Selzer, this time by Dennis Donnelly, a resident of West Des Moines, and co-plaintiff, The Center for American Rights, a Chicago-based conservative nonprofit. They allege the defendants defrauded subscribers by publishing the poll. FIRE will also be representing Selzer in this matter.
Understandably, these cases are sparking conversations at news outlets nationwide, with questions like: Are we taking these threats seriously enough? Are we doing everything we can to protect the safety of our personnel, newsrooms and businesses? Do we have adequate libel insurance coverage? And, do we have the proper legal counsel on speed dial?
Gretchen A. Peck is a contributing editor to Editor & Publisher. She's reported for E&P since 2010 and welcomes comments at gretchenapeck@gmail.com.
Comments
No comments on this item Please log in to comment by clicking here