Media Must Cover Press Attacks as 1st Amendment Crisis

The Trump administration has now subpoenaed not just New York Times journalists, but their family members — including a reporter's mother and two reporters' spouses — in an effort to seize phone records and identify the sources behind accurate reporting on the president's Qatari-gifted Air Force One. This comes on top of earlier grand jury subpoenas compelling the journalists themselves to testify. The story they reported turned out to be entirely correct: Trump has since announced plans to spend even more taxpayer money "maxing out" the plane's inadequate security features. The administration is not pursuing these journalists because they got it wrong. It is pursuing them because they got it right.

This is not an isolated legal dispute. It is part of a systematic campaign to make journalism dangerous. This administration has revoked press credentials, threatened broadcast licenses, filed lawsuits against outlets, and now has extended its legal reach to the families of reporters who cover it honestly. The message to every newsroom in America is clear: your sources, your colleagues, and your loved ones are all fair game.

We call on the media to cover the DOJ's subpoenas of New York Times journalists and their families not as a niche media story, but as the First Amendment crisis it is — one that threatens every American's right to a free press. When a government targets reporters' mothers to silence accurate reporting, that is authoritarianism. The public deserves journalism that names it as such.