Press Freedom Report: April 1, 2025

United States

• Legal Push Intensifies Against Media Shutdown Orders
  The Press Freedom Center hosted a major conference responding to the administration’s shutdown of Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, and other U.S.-funded outlets. Prominent media lawyers and journalists denounced the defunding as a politically motivated attack on press independence, especially harmful to foreign journalists reporting on authoritarian regimes. Legal filings were submitted in multiple jurisdictions, arguing that the closures violate constitutional protections and labor rights.

• Moral and Strategic Implications of Dismantling U.S.-Funded Media
  Speakers at the conference warned that the shuttering of these news services undermines America’s soft power and moral leadership. These outlets, long seen as tools for projecting democratic values and countering disinformation, are now being stripped of funding and personnel, leaving authoritarian narratives unchecked. Journalists working under threat in countries like Iran, Russia, and China could lose their most trusted platforms for truth-telling, posing broader consequences for global media freedom.