Two Vietnamese reporters are jailed for “propagandizing against the state.” A small local newspaper in Iowa just shuttered 144 years after publishing its first edition.
On the surface, these seem like separate stories — one about authoritarian repression, the other about economic decline — but they are threads in the same unraveling fabric: a global dismantling of a free and independent press. As autocracies spread and consolidate power around the world, local journalists face violence, censorship,and imprisonment. All of this is accelerated by the U.S. government’s hostility to reporters at home and abroad, its retreat from global leadership on press freedom and its deep cuts to independent journalism internationally. Some newsrooms are simply quietly disappearing, victims of market forces. The tools differ, but the goal is the same: Silence the truth so the powerful are not held to account.
The global attacks against journalism and the informed citizenry it fosters are deployed by powerful figures such as Donald Trump and Elon Musk in the U.S., Viktor Orbán in Hungary, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Turkey, Vladimir Putin in Russia and Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel, all of whom seek to vilify the press and shield themselves from scrutiny. Each is drawing on the same authoritarian playbook: Spread lies, attack and stonewall journalists, gut funding for news outlets and attempt to control the narrative.
Yet, a trifecta of events reminds us that whether journalism is silenced by authoritarian forces or simply allowed to wither, the result is the same: unchecked power, rampant disinformation and a weakened press that leaves the public in the dark. These three events — the U.S. Senate’s proclamation of April as Preserving and Protecting Local News Month, World Press Freedom Day on May 3, and the 100th day of the Trump administration on April 29 — offer a striking reminder of what’s at stake. After all, Trump’s first 100 days in office have been marked by sustained attacks on journalism, both at home and abroad.
Global press crackdowns and the collapse of local news are intertwined assaults. They show the need for urgent investment, stronger policy protections and broad public support to defend journalism at every level, in every community.
Big Tech ad revenue, surveillance
The root causes of these shared threats are increasingly clear.
Although the collapse of the advertising-based business model that used to sustain local journalism began decades ago, it was radically accelerated by the advent of Big Tech. Companies such as Google, Facebook and Amazon now siphon off nearly 70% of global ad revenue, made possible by their unchecked digital surveillance of consumers, which makes it nearly impossible for newsrooms to compete in selling ads.
In the past two decades in the U.S. alone, more than 3,000 newspapers have shut down, leaving vast stretches of the country in “news deserts” devoid of accountability journalism. Legal, regulatory and legislative actions against the press — paired with escalating attacks from politicians — have further eroded the landscape’s health. It is no accident that tech leaders eager to stave off regulatory reform of their industry were racing one another to visit Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate and donate to his inauguration.
The global journalism landscape was further dismantled in March when Trump gutted the U.S. Agency for Global Media, the agency that oversees independent news outlets that broadcast in countries where free press is limited or controlled by the government. Many journalists working for those organizations are in exile in the U.S. and now face deportation, with some at risk of harassment, arrest or even torture if forced to return to their home countries.
In a troubling sign for informed democracies, this void of reliable information continues to grow, both in the U.S. and globally. Guatemalan journalist José Rubén Zamora, Eritrean journalist Dawit Isaak and Palestinian journalists Mohammad Badr and Ameer Abu Iram are among those detained in violation of international law, according to the press freedom nonprofit Committee to Protect Journalists. The razing of the U.S. Agency for International Development has left newsrooms from Latvia to Ukraine to Moldova facing an uncertain future. Meanwhile, outlets such as the Santa Barbara News-Press, Colorado’s Lamar Ledger and the Center for Public Integrity have shuttered after decades in operation, unable to survive in an era where Big Tech reaps advertising revenue that once supported local journalism.
Journalists jailed, newspapers shuttered
In each case, a barren or diminished news landscape remains where truth once thrived, leaving room for disinformation to exploit these low-information environments and twist the narrative.
Back in Vietnam, this shift is evident as journalists Pham Chi Dung and Nguyen Tuong Thuy were sentenced to 15 and 11 years in prison, respectively. They are two of 361 journalists currently imprisoned around the world, according to CPJ’s most recent tally.
And in the Midwest, a sudden dearth of reliable information struck a small northwestern Iowa community that lost The Aurelia Star, a local weekly newspaper that had been in print since March 1881. Above now-stagnant headlines about road projects and a community concert, The Star’s website offers a quiet eulogy: “the demise of another small-town newspaper.”
The U.S. once stood as a global champion of press freedom, but our failures at home undermine credibility abroad and weaken global solidarity. The public, Congress, philanthropic leaders and local elected officials must treat local journalism like public infrastructure that is essential to democracy, civic engagement and truth itself. Defending press freedom demands standing up for it everywhere — whether a reporter is jailed or a newsroom is shuttered.
If you want to support press freedom, subscribe or donate to a local outlet and speak up when a journalist is attacked. Democracy depends on all reporters being able to do their jobs, whether in Kyiv or in Kansas.
OPINION by TIMOTHY RICHARDSON and VIKTORYA VILK/Special to the Kansas City Star
Timothy Richardson is program director for journalism and disinformation and Viktorya Vilk is the director for digital safety and free expression for PEN America, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that produces original research on pressing threats to free expression.
