Volume 30, Number 2
Below is the Table of Contents for the 2025 Winter/Spring: Volume 30, Number 2 edition of the Silha Bulletin. Click on the title to read the full article.
Cover Story: Trump Bans Associated Press from White House After It Refuses to Call Gulf of Mexico “Gulf of America”
The Associated Press (AP) has become a target in Donald Trump’s assault on the First Amendment and the battle against the “biased” media.
Trump and the Media: Trump Sues CBS Over 60 Minutes Story, Threatens CBS Parent Company’s Merger with Skydance
On Oct. 7, 2024, CBS News aired an episode of 60 Minutes that featured an interview with Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris.
Trump and the Media: Trump Sues Des Moines Register, Continuing Attack on Media Outlets That Publish Unfavorable Coverage
On Nov. 2, 2024, just prior to the 2024 presidential election, The Des Moines Register (the Register) published a poll showing that Kamala Harris had taken the lead over Donald Trump in Iowa.
Media Regulation: Media Organizations Threatened with Regulation By New FCC Chair Brendan Carr; Funding for Public Broadcasting Also in Jeopardy
On Jan. 20, 2025, the day of Donald Trump’s inauguration, Brendan Carr assumed the chair of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
Journalistic Independence: Jeff Bezos Announces New Washington Post Editorial Policy in Support of “Personal Liberties and Free Markets,” Raising Journalistic Independence Concerns
Jeff Bezos, the billionaire Amazon founder and Washington Post owner, announced in February 2025 that the Opinions section of The Post would implement an editorial change.
Endangered Journalists: Trump Administration Threatens Free Expression on Campus and in the Student Press with Immigration Crackdown Targeting Dissident Speakers
On March 11, 2025, students and faculty from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism (Columbia Journalism School) gathered to discuss the Trump administration’s crackdown on political speech and pro-Palestinian activism.
Endangered Journalists: Stanford Drops Disciplinary Action Against Student Journalist Dilan Gohill; District Attorney Declines to Press Charges
In the early morning hours of June 5, 2024, Stanford University Police began arresting pro-Palestinian protesters who had barricaded themselves inside the university president’s office.
Trump and the Media: Trump Shutters U.S. News Agencies
On March 14, 2025, President Donald Trump issued an executive order gutting the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), the government agency that oversees and funds various nonpartisan international broadcasters including Voice of America (VOA) and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), whose mission is to disseminate news and information about the United States worldwide.
Free Speech: Supreme Court Upholds TikTok Ban, But Trump Comes to App’s Rescue
On Jan. 17, 2025, in a unanimous per curiam decision, the United States Supreme Court upheld a 2024 law that was set to impose a national ban on the video-sharing app TikTok.
Defamation: CNN Found Liable in Defamation Case; Reaches Settlement
On Jan. 17, 2025, CNN reached a settlement in a defamation case brought by U.S. Navy veteran Zachary Young.
Defamation: Trump Settles Defamation Suit With ABC
On Dec. 13, 2024, then-President-Elect Donald Trump and ABC News settled a defamation claim stemming from an ABC anchor’s misstatement that Trump had been found civilly liable of raping the writer E. Jean Carroll.
Defamation: Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani Settles With Georgia Election Workers He Defamed
On Jan. 16, 2025, Rudy Giuliani reached a settlement agreement in the defamation case brought against Giuliani by two Georgia poll workers in 2021.
Prior Restraint: Mississippi Judge Vacates Order That Newspaper Remove Its Editorial
On Feb. 26, 2025, Mississippi Chancery Court Judge Crystal Wise Martin of Hinds County Chancery Court vacated her previous order which required a local newspaper, The Clarksdale Press Register (The Press Register), to remove an editorial criticizing local officials.
Endangered Journalists: Trump Administration Quashes Consent Decree Between Minneapolis and DOJ That Would Have Protected Press
On May 21, 2025, the Trump administration announced that it would no longer enforce a consent decree between the city of Minneapolis and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) that was negotiated in the wake of a federal investigation of police misconduct, including actions taken against journalists, following the murder of George Floyd in May 2020.
Silha Center Events: 2025 Silha Spring Ethics Forum Examines the Ethics of Undercover Investigative Reporting
At the 2025 Silha Spring Ethics Forum on Monday, Feb. 24, 2025, Professor Alan Chen argued that, although truth in journalism is an essential ethical value, investigative reporters are justified in engaging in what he called “high value lies”: lies that actually promote the values underlying the First Amendment and freedom of the press because they are “lies that are used in the service of discovering the actual truth.”