NEW YORK – The year 2025 has emerged as an alarming period for advocates of press freedom, marked by startling incidents that have shaken the journalism community.

In what could become a record-breaking year for tragic reasons, the number of journalist and media worker fatalities is poised to surpass any previous year. The United States has seen a troubling surge in assaults on reporters, nearly equaling the combined total from the past three years. In a climate of hostility, the President of the United States has been openly antagonistic, disparaging journalists and even resorting to derogatory language, such as calling one female reporter “piggy.” Meanwhile, the dwindling number of journalists in the field only adds to the growing concerns.

Reflecting on these developments, Tim Richardson, a former reporter for The Washington Post and now a program director for journalism and disinformation at PEN America, underscores the severity of the situation. “This past year has seen probably the most aggressive assault on the press in modern times,” he states, echoing the sentiments of many in the industry.

Globally, the grim statistics paint a similar picture. By early December 2025, the Committee to Protect Journalists reported the deaths of 126 media professionals, matching the total for all of 2024, which was already a record year. Notably, Israel’s military actions in Gaza contributed significantly to this toll, claiming the lives of 85 individuals, including 82 Palestinians.

For those dedicated to defending press freedom and the safety of journalists, these figures represent a distressing trend that demands urgent attention and action.

“It’s extremely concerning,” said Jodie Ginsberg, CEO of the Committee to Protect Journalists. “Unfortunately, it’s not just, of course, about the sheer numbers of journalists and media workers killed, it’s also about the failure to obtain justice or get accountability for those killings.

“What we know from decades of doing this work is that impunity breeds impunity,” she said. “So a failure to tackle journalists’ killings creates an environment where those killings continue.”

The committee estimates there are at least 323 journalists imprisoned worldwide.

None of those killed this year were from the United States. But the work on American soil has still been dangerous. There have been 170 reports of assaults on journalists in the United States this year, 160 of them at the hands of law enforcement, according to the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker. Many of those reports came from coverage of immigration enforcement efforts.

It’s impossible to look past the influence of President Donald Trump, who frequently seethes with anger at the press while simultaneously interacting with journalists more than any president in memory — frequently answering their cell phone calls.

“Trump has always attacked the press,” Richardson said. “But during the second term, he’s turned that into government action to restrict and punish and intimidate journalists.”

Journalists learn quickly they have a fight on their hands

The Associated Press learned that quickly, when Trump limited the outlet’s access to cover him after it refused to follow his lead to rename the Gulf of Mexico. It launched a court fight that has remained unresolved. Trump has also extracted settlements from ABC and CBS News in lawsuits over stories that displeased him, and is suing The New York Times and Wall Street Journal.

Long angry about a perceived bias against conservatives on PBS and NPR newscasts, Trump and his allies in Congress successfully cut funding for public broadcasting as a whole. The president has also moved to shut down government-run organizations that beam news to all parts of the world.

“The U.S. is a major investor in media development, in independent media outlets in countries that have little or no independent media, or as a source of information for people in countries where there is no free media,” Ginsberg said. “The evisceration of Radio Free Europe, Radio Free Asia and the Voice of America is another blow to press freedom globally.”

Others in his administration take Trump’s lead, like when his press office chose the day after Thanksgiving to launch a web portal to complain about outlets or journalists being unfair.

“It’s part of this overall strategy that we’re seeing from certain governments, notably the United States, to paint all journalists who don’t simply (repeat) the narrative put out by the government as fake news, as dubious, as dodgy, as criminal,” Ginsberg said.

Trump’s defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, has portrayed journalists as dark figures skulking around Pentagon halls to uncover classified secrets as his rationale for putting in restrictive rules for coverage.

That’s led to the most notable example of journalists fighting back: most mainstream news outlets gave up their credentials to work in the Pentagon rather than agree to these rules, and are still breaking stories while working off site. The New York Times has sued to overturn the rules. The newspaper also publicly defends itself when attacked by the president, such as when he complained about its coverage of his health.

Despite the more organized effort against the press, the public has taken little notice. The Pew Research Center said that 36% of Americans reported earlier this year hearing about the Trump administration’s relationship with the press, compared to 72% who said that at the same point in his first term.

Polls consistently show that journalists have never been popular, and are likely to elicit little sympathy when their work becomes harder.

“Really the harm falls on the public with so much of this because the public depends on this independent reporting to understand and scrutinize the decisions that are being made by the most powerful office in the world,” Richardson said.

Some reasons for optimism

The news industry as a whole is more than two decades in to a retrenchment caused largely by a collapse in the advertising market, and every year brings more reports of journalists laid off as a result. One of the year’s most sobering statistics came in a report by the organizations Muck Rack and Rebuild Local News: in 2002, there were 40 journalists for every 100,000 people in the United States and by this year, it was down to just over eight.

Asked if they could find reasons for optimism, both Ginsberg and Richardson pointed to the rise of some independent local news organizations, shoots of growth of growth in a barren landscape, places like the Baltimore Banner, Charlottesville Tomorrow in Virginia and Outlier Media in Michigan.

As much as they are derided in Trump’s America, influential Axios CEO Jim VandeHei noted in a column recently that reporters at mainstream media outlets are still working hard and able to set the nation’s agenda with their reporting.

As he told the AP: “Over time, people will hopefully come to their senses and say, ‘Hey, the media like anything else is imperfect but, man, it’s a nice thing to have a free press.’”

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David Bauder writes about the intersection of media and entertainment for the AP. Follow him at and https://bsky.app/profile/dbauder.bsky.social.