What Trump's second term may mean for press freedoms
By Gabe Rottman / Los Angeles Times
With Donald Trump set to return to the White House, there’s much speculation on how his second administration will affect press freedom. The short answer is that we don’t know, but prognosticators do have the benefit of an important dataset: his first term.
And, if that record is any indication, national security “leaks” to the press may be an area of tension between journalists and the new leadership at the Justice Department. If there is a chilling effect on sources coming forward with newsworthy information in the public interest, Americans will be less informed and the American government will be held less accountable.
Things have been quiet on that front for the last four years, but the first Trump administration inherited and expanded the Obama administration’s aggressive pursuit of sources who disclosed government secrets to the press.
And President-elect Trump has often decried national security leaks and called for aggressively investigating and prosecuting them.
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