Daily Herald opinion: Troubling times: Report highlights disturbing trend on eve of World Press Freedom Day

World Press Freedom Day returns Sunday amid troubling times for First Amendment protections in the United States and rising abuses across the globe.

In fact, the Reporters Without Borders’ World Press Freedom Index — released Thursday — notes that press freedom worldwide is the lowest it’s been in the 25 years the organization has been publishing its ranking.

For the first time in the index’s history, more than half the world’s nations currently fall into the press freedom categories of either “difficult” or “very serious.”

The United States fares better than most nations, but it is still considered “problematic” — and dropped a deeply concerning seven places to No. 64 in this year’s ranking of 180 countries and territories, signaling a “significant and prolonged decline in press freedom” on American soil.

The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker reports that there were more than 170 physical attacks on journalists in 2025, nearly double that of 2024. Much of that increase is attributed to violence against reporters, photographers and news crews covering immigration protests and law enforcement activity.

In addressing the darkening press picture in the U.S., Reporters Without Borders calls out President Donald Trump, though there are other factors at work. In today’s challenging media landscape, newspaper closures mean as many as 50 million people in the U.S. live in so-called “news deserts,” according to 2025 figures from The Medill Local News Initiative.

But Trump is singled out in ways that should chill even his supporters. Since returning to the White House early last year, the report notes, the president — who once called the press an “enemy of the people” — has censored data, weaponized government agencies to punish media outlets for unfavorable coverage, sued newspapers and broadcasters and gone after public broadcasting.

He has also tried to further erode media trust and diminish the credibility of journalists by widely and inaccurately dismissing reports that conflict with his accounts as “fake news.” Some attacks have been shamefully personal, especially against women in the industry. Trump called a New York Times reporter “third rate” and “ugly” and responded “quiet, piggy” to a question about the Epstein files from a Bloomberg News journalist.

His quest to silence opponents and his thirst for retribution, of course, are not solely directed at the press, as this week’s moves targeting late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel and former FBI director James Comey so clearly show. Using the Federal Communications Commission and the Department of Justice against those who cross him has become a dangerous but sadly predictable play of the Trump administration.

As we pointed out last year on the eve of World Press Freedom Day, when news stations and newspapers are sued by the president and targeted by the FCC, they are forced to operate under a constant threat of retaliation. That’s dangerous for both a free press and an informed electorate.

Government “by the people” inherently demands access to government operations and the freedom to speak and, yes, to criticize.

It relies on a free press.

In assessing changes over the past 25 years in its most recent report, Reporters Without Borders insists the group “isn’t just looking back — it’s looking squarely at the future with a simple question: how much longer will we tolerate the suffocation of journalism, the systematic obstruction of reporters and the continued erosion of press freedom?”

It’s an important question, one that hits home more now than in the past.

The press is not the enemy. It is democracy’s safeguard.