📩 Read in our weekly newsletter (and subscribe): - Covering protests is a dangerous job for journalists - Stop Heng Guan's deportation - The FCC’s declaration of dependence - Trump’s BBC lawsuit is nonsense, like his others - Plus, what we're reading...

Bari's betrayal of CBS met with condemnation from inside: "If the standard for airing a story becomes 'the government must agree to be interviewed,' then the government effectively gains control over the 60 Minutes broadcast. We go from an investigative powerhouse to a stenographer for the state."

So many people are watching bootleg versions of the 60 Minutes CECOT segment, could it end up with more viewers than if it just aired normally? Pure Streisand effect. I feel bad for rank and file CBS staff filing Sisyphean takedown requests. Did Bari Weiss screw up their holidays on top of it?

well, archivists gonna archive. torrents remain undefeated www.404media.co/archivists-p...

A Syrian expat was dining at Sixty, a restaurant at the top of a Moscow skyscraper, when waiters asked him not to take any photos. The diner looked around to see who the VIP was. It was Bashar al-Assad. Our story on the family’s life in exile: www.nytimes.com/2025/12/22/w...

Sounds like they're trying to Bari the story.

Anti-Palestinian Billionaires Can Now Control What TikTok Users See

“We have been promoting this story on social media for days…Our viewers are expecting it. When it fails to air without a credible explanation, the public will correctly identify this as corporate censorship. We are trading 50 years of ‘gold standard’ reputation for a single week of political quiet.”

Olive grove by olive grove, sheep pasture by sheep pasture, village by village — over the past two years, Israeli settlers, often with Israeli military support, have escalated their unrelenting campaign to seize land and erase its Palestinian presence. Paywall free: nytimes.com/interactive/...

“By impairing our ability to know what's happening in our country and our world, the Trump administration is creating the conditions for unchecked corporate power, growing immiseration, and rampant environmental destruction.” Via @projectcensored.bsky.social

The police were naughty. The prosecutors were nice. We’re heading into the holidays with a nice win for press freedom in Miami:

"The Kelly and Epstein cases are Exhibits A and B in how secrecy protects predators, not their victims," @seth-stern.bsky.social and Jim DeRogatis write in @columjournreview.bsky.social. Without journalists and their reporting, "Epstein and Kelly would likely still be preying on young girls."

Without journalists and the information they pried loose from the government, Epstein and R. Kelly “would likely still be preying on young girls from Chicago to the US Virgin Islands,” @freedom.press’ @seth-stern.bsky.social and Jim DeRogatis write in @columjournreview.bsky.social.

Trump's attempt to deport Chinese dissident Guan Heng is part of an awful pattern Read more from @ilyasomin.bsky.social in @volokhc.bsky.social:

@freedom.press’ @seth-stern.bsky.social and @rsf.org’s Clayton Weimers don’t mince words writing about Brendan Carr — who wears Trump’s face as his lapel pin — and his weaponization of the non-independent FCC “You’re either an umpire calling balls and strikes or a political hack –you can’t be both”

Great film! Don’t miss it! Also, you’ll get to see and hear from this incredible documentarian in person.

She asked one question: "Are you ICE?" With no warning, agents took her to the ground. They shackled her for hours. They cut off parts of her clothes — and even her wedding ring. Now, @aclumn.bsky.social is fighting back for protesters, observers and journalists exercising their 1A rights.

“The electric fence safeguarding our free press is down, and, as predicted, the velociraptors came,” @pressfreedomtracker.us’ @kamccudden.bsky.social writes in @niemanlab.org. “In 2026, we’ll systematically work together to curtail the velociraptors, leaning on courts and collective action…”

In late 2020 a Chinese man called Guan Heng travelled to Xinjiang with our BuzzFeed map of detention facilities to provide ground truth for our work - he provided the first corroborating evidence for many sites. He escaped to the US - then ICE detained him. www.wsj.com/world/china/...

In October I asked Secret Service for all records concerning the construction of the White House Ballroom. Today I was told they were either 1) publicly available (LOL no) or 2) presidential records and I couldn't have them. Most transparent administration in history strikes again.

The Vanity Fair photographer from the Susie Wiles story. Holy. Shit. www.washingtonpost.com/style/power/...

Stephen Miller uttering the word "kind"?! wow...

This sucks... "They didn’t expect problems getting Hochul’s signature, since she’d signed and celebrated the original bill. "Gallagher blames the influence of business interests, some of whom have been major campaign donors to Hochul’s reelection bid."

"Here are a bunch of unarmed people with baby formula on a ship, and then there’s this elite navy who are just armed to the fucking teeth ... there to intercept us." I wrote in @jacobinmag.bsky.social about @freedom.press' recent panel with 3 U.S. journalists who were aboard the Gaza aid flotillas.

Over two dozen press freedom, civil rights and media advocacy groups joined together today to demand that FCC and Chairman Carr reaffirm their commitment to the First Amendment and to the rule of law, and the agency's independence "When government intimidation stifles the press, it silences us all"

lol

So... @support.bsky.team still hasn't given any tangible help on how we can get access to our @thetriibe.com account again. It's going on a week now. Will be posting our stories from here in the meantime.

Use our action center to tell lawmakers to stop the Trump administration from deporting Heng Guan, who helped journalists expose the horrors of Uyghur prison camps in Xinjiang, China. His life could be at risk.

By @seth-stern.bsky.social's count, Trump has demanded $65 billion in damages from media outlets in lawsuits filed in 2025 — 9x his net worth. "If any ordinary person filed as many frivolous multibillion-dollar lawsuits as Donald Trump, they’d be sanctioned and placed on a restricted filers list."

From LA to Chicago, press arrests were used to silence protest coverage across the country in 2025. Each arrest signaled a shift in how authorities police information and those who gather it. Read @pressfreedomtracker.us's new report by @stephaniesugars.bsky.social:

“National security” already lost its meaning when it was weaponized to silence protected speech, but this wild claim takes the absurdity to a completely new level.

“You don’t get to call out any alleged journalistic blunder and demand $10bn,” @seth-stern.bsky.social tells @us.theguardian.com. It’s “outrageous that his claims are based on supposedly damaging implications of his using the word ‘fight’. He sells T-shirts with that word on them.”

How an AM radio station in California weathered the Trump administration’s assault on media @byrontau.bsky.social reports:

Courts "are not supposed to close their eyes when the government says it wants to control what people can say or hear," @jameeljaffer.bsky.social and @evelyndouek.bsky.social write in @theguardian.com on SCOTUS' TikTok ruling earlier this year. This is not how First Amendment "is supposed to work."

👋 Our FOIA requests and lawsuits revealed a trove of government secrets in 2025. Join @freedom.press, @jasonleopold.bsky.social, @weareoversight.bsky.social, and @kevinok.bsky.social on r/IAmA at 1 p.m. EST to ask us anything about our work and discoveries. ➡️ www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comme...

NEW: This year, @pressfreedomtracker.us documented 32 arrests, detention of journalists in the U.S. - Nearly 90% of the incidents occurred while journalists were covering demonstrations. - They all also centered around a single issue: immigration. Read full report by @stephaniesugars.bsky.social⬇️

The Tracker's 2025 arrest report now live

In 2025, @pressfreedomtracker.us documented at least 32 instances in which journalists were detained or charged — just for doing their jobs. Nearly 90% of them occurred while journalists were covering demonstrations. Read our annual arrest report:

Good news: earlier this year, we called on the European Commission to act over Google's theft of independent journalists' work to fuel 'AI Overviews'. Today they announced that they've opened an investigation: www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

ICE claims it has no bodycam footage of its Chicago operations, in response to our @freedom.press FOIA request. As the @nytimes.com reports, this contradicts its "sworn court testimony and the fact that it had previously submitted video footage to a judge." www.nytimes.com/2025/12/10/u...

‘It’s not a coincidence’: journalists of color on being laid off amid Trump’s anti-DEI push: Black and brown former employees from CBS, NBC and Teen Vogue talk about the effects of being let go

Even if we accept at face value that ICE has no footage and the Chicago litigation didn't force agents who didn't already have them to get them, that is a huge problem. ICE's budget skyrocketed under this administration. There's no excuse for agents not to have them.

In request to a @freedom.press' FOIA for all body-worn camera footage from Op. Midway Blitz in Chicago, ICE deliberately, conveniently, and without our consent, narrowed its search to only its ERO unit. "ICE is not the secret police or exempt from accountability," says @laurenleharper.bsky.social.

The lawless agency named ICE informed my @freedom.press' colleague @laurenleharper.bsky.social this week that it has no body-worn camera footage from the ongoing Operation Midway Blitz in and around Chicago area, despite an Oct. court order requiring federal agents to wear body cameras.

In June, Israel told @welch.senate.gov that it'd closed its review of the Oct. 13, 2023, targeted double-tap strike on 7 journalists in Southern Lebanon and found no one accountable. 4 months later, Israel lied, telling @afp.com "the incident is under review" and the findings not yet concluded.

ICE(ERO) just told me it has no body camera footage from operation midway blitz in Chicago in response to my FOIA request.

Threatening to punish app stores if they don’t remove apps the government dislikes is unconstitutional.This time it’s ICEBlock, but tomorrow it could be a news app. Good for ICEBlock for standing up for everyone’s First Amendment rights.

"If the goal is speed and the cost is accuracy and accountability, AI is the clear winner. If accuracy and accountability is the baseline, then AI, as used in these instances, cannot yet rival the hallmarks of human output."

"Publications now that really lean into human-led work will be around and will be thriving. Publications that are leaning into AI as a solution for their journalism will not."

A cabal of those with the most power and wealth "is helping the administration place a chokehold on dissenting voices. The net effect is to weaken scrutiny that might otherwise prevent legally questionable and blatantly unconstitutional acts" New, comprehensive report by @attorneynora.bsky.social.