Press Intimidation

  • The 2007 Media Subpoena Survey, conducted by RonNell Anderson Jones, revealed that the 761 responding news organizations (media and television) participating in the study reported that their "reporters, editors or other news employees" received a total of 3,062 "subpoenas seeking information or material relating to newsgathering" in calendar year 2006. Weighting responses to estimate actual values for the entire population (media organizations) suggests that a total of 7,244 subpoenas were received by all daily newspapers and network-affiliated television news operations in the United States that year.

    Newsroom leaders' responses lean heavily toward the belief that both raw numbers and subpoena risk are up. Sixty-four percent of all newsroom leaders believe the frequency of media subpoenas to be greater than it was five years ago. Nearly half believe the risk of their own organization receiving a subpoena is greater than it was five years ago, while only six percent believe the risk to be less.

    "Avalance or Undue Alarm? An Empirical Study of the Subpoenas Received by the News Media

  • A survey conducted by the International News Safety Institute unveiled that between January 1996 and June 2006 one thousand news media personnel around the world have been killed trying to report the news. This staggering figure breaks down to almost two deaths every week for a decade, with only one out of every four deaths occurring during war or armed conflicts. In two-thirds of the cases the killers were never identified and 90 percent of the murderers in the past decade were never prosecuted. "In many countries, murder has become the easiest, cheapest and most effective way of silencing troublesome reporting, and the more the killers get away with it the more the spiral of death is forced upwards," says Rodney Pinder, Director of INSI.60

  • The Reporters Without Borders 2006 Worldwide Press Freedom Index ranked the United States 53rd out of 168 countries surveyed, with the U.S. falling another nine places from its 2005 rankings. Botswana, Croatia and Tonga are tied with the U.S. in the 53rd position.31


  • A 2005 report by the Committee to Protect Journalists ranks the United States tied for sixth place among countries that are holding the most journalists behind bars. The United States is currently holding four Iraqi journalists at detention centers in Iraq and one Sudanese cameraman at the Guantanamo Bay.32


  • Associated Press reporter John Solomon's home telephone records were subpoenaed by the Justice Department in an attempt to identify his sources and ascertain his future news stories. In an interview about the subpoena, Solomon said, "[The Justice Department was] actually trying to stop the publication of a story that I was working on and tried to find out who I was talking to and cut off the flow of information." 33


  • Four journalists were arrested in New York City days after September 11, 2001, following the arrival of the National Guard. The reporters had their accreditation withdrawn and film seized. One photographer was detained for three days and then released without any charge.34


  • In December, 2004, Rhode Island investigative reporter James Taricani started serving six months of house arrest for refusing to name a source.35


  • Six journalists were charged with contempt for refusing to release the names of their sources on the stories published about Wen Ho Lee, a nuclear scientist named by the press as being suspected of passing secrets to the Chinese.36


  • In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina several journalists were harassed and media access was restricted by local, state, and federal officials. On September 1, police in New Orleans ripped a camera from the neck of Lucas Oleniuk of the Toronto Star who had photographed clashes between police and looters. On September 7, 2006 Brian Williams, anchor for U.S. broadcaster NBC, and his crew were ordered to stop trying to film a National Guard unit securing a store in downtown New Orleans. "I have searched my mind for some justification for why I can't be reporting in a calm and heavily defended American city and cannot find one. 37


  • FEMA issued a warning to television journalists insisting that they abstain from filming corpses in New Orleans. CNN sued FEMA and eventually was permitted to show the dead bodies. However, no other network was willing to join CNN's fight against censorship.38


  • Federal Judge Thomas Hogan sentenced New York Times reporter Judith Miller to jail in 2005 for refusing to disclose the identity of a confidential source in the investigation into who leaked the identity of C.I.A operative Valerie Plume. Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper avoided imprisonment when he said he would testify before a grand jury after his source released him from his promise of confidentiality.39


  • Since 2004 more than a dozen journalists have been prosecuted for refusing to reveal their sources to federal courts.40