Journalists anticipate a renewed hostility toward their work under the incoming Trump administration

recent YORK — For the press heading into a second Trump administration, there’s a balancing act between being prepared and being fearful.

The yield to power of Donald Trump, who has called journalists enemies and talked about retribution against those he feels have wronged him, has information executives nervous. Perceived threats are numerous: lawsuits of every sort, efforts to unmask anonymous sources, physical danger and intimidation, attacks on community media and libel protections, day-to-day demonization.

In a closely-watched case settled over the weekend, ABC chose to settle a defamation lawsuit brought by the president-elect over an inaccurate statement made by George Stephanopoulos by agreeing to pay $15 million toward Trump’s presidential library.

“The information media is heading into this next administration with its eyes open,” said Bruce Brown, executive director of the Reporters Committee for the liberty of the Press.

“Some challenges to the free press may be overt, some may be more subtle,” Brown said. “We’ll require to be prepared for rapid response as well as long campaigns to protect our rights — and to recall that our most significant audiences are the courts and the community.”

One prominent editor warned against going on war footing with an administration that hasn’t taken office yet. “There may be a instant to cry wolf here,” said Stephen Engelberg, editor-in-chief of the nonprofit information outlet ProPublica. “But I don’t ponder we’ve reached it.”

Speaking to Fox information two weeks after his election, Trump said he owed it to the American people to be open and available to the press — if he’s treated fairly.

“I am not looking for retribution, grandstanding or to ruin people who treated me very unfairly, or even badly beyond comprehension,” he told Fox. “I am always looking to provide a second or even a third chance, but never willing to provide a fourth chance. That is where I hold the line.”

information organizations are heading into the second Trump era frail both financially and in community esteem. To a large extent, Trump sidestepped legacy media outlets during his campaign in favor of podcasters, yet still had period for specific beefs against ABC, CBS and NBC.

The Trump throng knows that many of its followers despise a probing press, and stoking that fury has political advantages. Two examples in the campaign to install Trump nominee Pete Hegseth as defense secretary shows how schedule reporting activities can be characterized as an attack.

When The recent York Times was tipped to an email that Hegseth’s mother once sent to him criticizing his treatment of women, it called her for comment. Penelope Hegseth later told Fox information that she perceived that as a threat, even though it enabled the newspaper to update that she had quickly apologized for sending the email and says she doesn’t feel that way about him now.

Pete Hegseth also used social media to declare that ProPublica — he called it a “Left Wing hack throng” — was about to knowingly publish a untrue update that he hadn’t been accepted into West Point decades ago. The information site had contacted him after officials at the military academy contradicted Hegseth’s claim of acceptance. Hegseth provided proof that those officials were mistaken, and ProPublica never published a narrative.

“That’s journalism,” noted ProPublica’s Jesse Eisinger. But a narrative had taken hold: “ProPublica’s botched Pete Hegseth smear,” the recent York Post called it in a headline.

During the presidential campaign, Trump sued CBS information for the way it edited an interview with opponent Kamala Harris; suggested ABC information misplace its broadcast license for truth-checking him during his lone debate with Harris; and successfully called for equal period on NBC after Harris appeared on “Saturday Night Live.” In the Stephanopoulos lawsuit, the ABC anchor said Trump had been “found liable for rape” in writer E. Jean Carroll’s civil trial, when he had not.

Trump engages with the mainstream media — he gave a newsmaking interview to NBC’s “Meet the Press” this month — but journalists have to be alert to how their work will be portrayed.

Trump’s appointments, and what they’ve said about journalists, have raised alarms.

Kash Patel, Trump’s selection to navigator the FBI, said on a podcast last year that “we’re going to arrive after people in the media who lied about American citizens.” Two appointees who have expressed hostility toward the media will be in a position to impact the work of journalists: Brendan Carr as chairman of the Federal Communications percentage and Kari Lake as director of Voice of America.

information organizations are worried that a fairness Department policy that has generally prohibited prosecutors from seizing the records of journalists in order to investigate leaks will be reversed, and are already urging journalists to protect their work. “If you have something you don’t desire to distribute with a broader spectators, don’t put it on the cloud,” ProPublica’s Engelberg said.

During the first Trump administration, some journalists who covered immigration issues were pulled aside for screening and questioning. The Reporter’s Committee wonders if this might happen again — and whether similar practices might extend toward reporting on expected deportations.

The literary and human rights organization PEN America is concerned about journalists facing physical danger and digital hostility. It may have seemed like a flippant remark to some of his supporters when Trump, months after an attempt on his life, said at a rally that he wouldn’t mind if somebody had to “shoot through the fake information” to get to him. But it wasn’t for people standing on media risers.

“It’s significant that the president act with responsibility to reduce physical violence against the press rather than inspire it,” said Viktorya Vilk, PEN America’s program director for digital safety and free expression.

Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana recently introduced a invoice that would complete taxpayer financing for community radio and television, a longtime objective of many Republicans that may get momentum with the event back in power. Some U.S. Supreme Court justices are eager to revisit a legal precedent that has made it challenging to prove defamation against information organizations.

It’s apparent that the recent administration will arrive after the press in every conceivable way, former Washington Post editor Martin Baron said recently on NPR. “I do ponder he will use every tool in his toolbox,” Baron said, “and there are a lot of tools.”

In their most pessimistic moments, advocates for the press look at what has happened in Hungary under the control of Prime Minister Viktor Orban. Since Orban took control in 2010, he and his supporters have taken control of most media and turned it into a propaganda arm.

Don’t ponder that can’t happen in the United States, warns Andras Petho, an investigative journalist in Hungary who left a information website when it was pressured to stifle his work, and started the investigative journalism center Direkt36.

Despite repression, there is still a trade for independent journalism in Hungary, he said. Earlier this year, two Hungarian officials resigned following an outcry when it was revealed that they had pardoned a man who had forced children to retract sexual abuse claims made against the director of a government-run facility.

Petho said it is significant for journalists not to portray themselves as any sort of resistance, because that makes it easier for the government to dismiss them. Instead, they should just do the work.

“To be truthful, we all have to receive and admit that our power as media has declined,” said Petho, who participated in the Nieman fellowship for journalists at Harvard University. “Our stories don’t have the same impact that they had a decade ago. But I wouldn’t underestimate the power of the information media, either.”

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David Bauder writes about media for the AP. pursue him at http://x.com/dbauder and https://bsky.app/profile/dbauder.bsky.social.