The First Amendment is First for a Reason

Two years into Donald Trump’s first term, in 2019, I was out to dinner on a Saturday evening when a New York Times colleague called to tell me the President of the United States had accused me of a “virtual act of treason.”

The story that prompted this outburst, which I wrote with fellow New York Times correspondent Nicole Perlroth, described how the United States was putting malware into the Russian utility grid—computer code that it fully expected the Russians to discover. The idea was to send a warning to Vladimir Putin: if his cyber forces activated a similar code that Moscow had placed in the American grid, it would be shut down. 

“Do you believe that the Failing New York Times just did a story stating that the United States is substantially increasing Cyber Attacks on Russia,” Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter,  now known as X. It wasn’t clear how much the President knew about the operation before we published our story. His national security staff knew the story was coming and raised no national security concerns about its publication since the code was designed to be discovered. Instead, the President reached immediately for wording that appeared intended to intimidate, charging that a free and independent press was not only inimical to the United States, but that reporters were guilty of the highest crime described in the Constitution. 

In newsrooms, all of us would be wise to reflect on why there is such a huge gap between the job journalists believe they are performing for a democracy and our readers’ perceptions.

With President Trump’s return to power, he has vowed again—in campaign rallies and statements—to use the power of his office to take on the news organizations and other media he has long sought to discredit. He is acutely aware that America’s once-fulsome trust in traditional news organizations, and in the very idea that the press is a critical and independent arbiter of facts, is at an all-time low—lower, in fact than the trust in media operating in some of the world’s most repressive governments. It has not helped that the news environment has been polluted by sources not rooted in reporting or fact-checking at all; endless streams of partisan posts, manipulated photographs, and misleading clickbait have been confused in the minds of the public with news generated by real news gatherers committed to unearthing fact.

And who can blame them? At first, Facebook said it was more like a giant pipeline of messages and images but not an arbiter of their truth. Then, after the 2016 election, it hired armies of fact-checkers. More recently, it got rid of them, returning to the myth that somehow “community notes” on posts will serve the same purpose. No reporter, no editor, no publisher can ignore the reality that most Americans don’t understand what constitutes a media outlet these days. Many readers don’t understand the difference between what reporters do—unearthing evidence, testing it, conducting scores of interviews—differs from what partisans or commentators do. They do not understand the crucial role of editors.

But in newsrooms, all of us would be wise to reflect on why there is such a huge gap between the job journalists believe they are performing for a democracy and our readers’ perceptions. It is also moments like this—moments of change in government mixed with the potential for intimidation—that call for journalists and journalism to focus on independent reporting more than ever, and to embrace old values: stories that dig deep, that surface facts and back them up with evidence, and that give citizens a view of their government that they won’t be getting from the White House, the Congress or the bureaucracy. American democracy depends on that kind of journalism at all times, but it is particularly vital whenever control of the White House and both houses of Congress are in the hands of a single party. In such conditions, Congressional investigations fall off, and the need for outside examinations of how government power is employed is greater than ever. 

None of this means it is time for a partisan or adversarial press. The best reporters I know realize that a new administration brings with it new ideas and approaches. Journalists, like the public, need an open mind to the possibility that many of those ideas are constructive, and may work. But openness can exist alongside healthy reportorial skepticism for the official story, in which government pronouncements are examined with an eye toward who benefits and who loses. Almost every important policy initiative I’ve encountered in 30 years of reporting in Washington has an interesting origin and an intriguing back story. If, for example, environmental regulations are being curtailed or secret deal-cutting is underway with Russia and Ukraine, or if a president sounds like he may want to redraw the international boundaries of Greenland or Canada, it’s time to examine the reason, the logic, and the approach. 

This tension between government officials and independent reporters and news organizations is not a bug in the American system, it is a feature as central as the push-and-pull among the president, Congress, and the courts. It makes democracy work. 

That isn’t treason. It isn’t espionage. It isn’t disloyal—far from it—and it shouldn’t be considered partisan. It is reporting, and it is the core of what the Founders had in mind when they wrote the First Amendment, and what the Supreme Court had in mind when, in the Pentagon Papers decision, it determined that the government could not exercise a prior restraint on what will be published. 

Fueling Distrust in the Media

Unsurprisingly, part of Mr. Trump’s strategy—a strategy he has described himself in years past—is to fuel the existing distrust in the media. He has made clear his belief that if he undercuts the public’s perception of the media’s trustworthiness it is easier to challenge stories that take on his facts, or his narrative. Thus, Mr. Trump’s somewhat brilliant hijacking of the term “fake news”—which before 2016 was a term used to describe, say, Russian and Chinese propaganda. More disturbing is his use of the term “enemies of the people” to describe journalists doing their jobs. It comes right out of the history books, often used to cast independent reporting as undermining the state, rather than strengthening it. And it can incite violence.

No one knows how this animus toward an independent press will unfold in Trump 2, but there are some clues. Kash Patel, his nominee to run the FBI—the agency that usually handles leak investigations—said before the election that the Trump administration would “come after the people in the media.” The expected incoming head of the Federal Communications Commission has raised the possibility of revoking Federal broadcast licenses for television stations that it views as biased against conservatives. 

News organizations are amassing the cash for prolonged legal challenges in case they are plunged into a new era of conflict with the executive branch: leak investigations, libel suits, license challenges, and tax investigations. Of course, as a nation we have been here before: When John Adams wanted to suppress critical coverage, he embraced the Alien and Sedition Acts. Woodrow Wilson did the same, under the cover of protecting state secrets in World War I, with the Espionage Act of 1917. (Elements of the Espionage Act gave rise to some of the charges against Julian Assange for his publication of Pentagon and State Department cables.) Richard Nixon had plenty of journalists on his enemies list. While Democrats often don’t like to hear it, there were more leak investigations under the Obama administration than in most modern presidencies combined. 

So, there is nothing new in the tension between the First Amendment absolutism often heard in newsrooms and the government’s desire to control the discourse—for national security reasons, for partisan reasons, or both. In nearly 43 years at the New York Times, I’ve been through many tense conversations with government officials about plans to publish stories about sensitive national security issues, from intelligence collected from Russia to US efforts to sabotage Iran’s nuclear program. More than one government official has asked some version of “Who elected you?”—a way of saying that reporters and editors, who do not have access to classified information, have no way of judging what harm they may be doing. My colleagues and I are open to reasonable arguments, and we have, after careful discussion with editors, delayed some stories or omitted some operational details that would put the lives of government sources or officials in danger. But rarely, if ever, have I seen a story outright killed. 

This tension between government officials and independent reporters and news organizations is not a bug in the American system, it is a feature as central as the push-and-pull among the president, Congress, and the courts. It makes democracy work. 

That kind of self-censorship can prove as damaging as the government seeking the same kind of editorial power. And it is a warning to us all: in an era of intimidation, it is tempting to hold back, and not challenge the government.

It is worth remembering that the idea that the American experiment requires a free and independent press outside of government control was fundamentally uncontroversial for most of the past half-century, at least since the age of the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal. For decades after the Supreme Court ruled in the Pentagon Papers case, enabling the New York Times and the Washington Post to publish a secret military history of Vietnam that exposed the hypocrisy and lies of generals and politicians who misrepresented the state of the conflict, few questioned the underlying logic that a true democracy requires a system in which the government does not get to preview, or control, what the populous reads. If it is wrong, libelous, or the result of an illegal leak—there are many, many legal leaks—it should get sorted out after publication.

Without question, this approach to free speech—barring the government from stopping publication—sets American democracy apart. Britain has far more control over what gets revealed because of its Official Secrets Act, and a lower barrier to what is considered libel. Israel has a vigorous form of military censorship when it comes to writing about the work of the Israel Defense Force or its intelligence agencies. Australia and Japan have more restrictive laws, practices, and customs: During the six years I was a foreign correspondent in Japan, I was astounded by the degree to which Japanese news organizations self-censored. 

Groups of Japanese reporters from different news organizations covering the foreign or finance ministries or the Imperial Palace organized themselves in so-called Kisha clubs. Rather than fully competing for scoops, they often colluded among themselves to keep some kinds of news from becoming public, in the interest of fostering good relations with their government sources. That kind of self-censorship can prove as damaging as the government seeking the same kind of editorial power. And it is a warning to us all: in an era of intimidation, it is tempting to hold back, and not challenge the government.

But I also found something else in Japan, and elsewhere: journalists worldwide admired the values behind America’s tradition of reporting, and, even if they could not articulate them in legal terms, the principles emanating from the Pentagon Papers case. They largely agreed that a truly vibrant democracy needed an equally vibrant press to keep the country’s most powerful forces honest. Many said their own society wasn’t ready for that, but it was an aspiration, a crucial part of what Joseph Nye, the famed Harvard political scientist, called our nation’s “soft power.” 

In short, a vibrant media was a symbol of the strength of American democracy. 

Taking Hits from All Sides 

Now, however, the consensus that the country’s democracy relies on truly independent reporting is beginning to shatter. Not surprisingly, it is yet another victim of the partisanship of the era. The problem is not just animus from the new administration or those vilifying the media from the right. It is also coming from the left. As the war between Israel and Hamas grew more brutal in 2024, those protesting the scope of the killing in Gaza charged that the major media was reflexively pro-Israel; meanwhile, longtime supporters of Israel argued that the Times, and other traditional media, were recently pro-Palestinian. They pointed to the stream of stories from the ground that described scenes of civilians killed, left homeless, or in search of water or escape, arguing that news organizations forgot that these events were triggered by the October 7 terror attack. Both sides were certain that they saw bias in the coverage—they just vociferously disagreed about which way that bias ran. 

I only know one North Star to follow in such a world: Get out and do the reporting. Don’t worry about whose narrative it fits—that’s the job of partisans, not journalists.

As A.G. Sulzberger, the publisher of the Times, said recently, “The newest dynamic—the most difficult to navigate—is that the posture of journalistic independence is now contested by nearly every group we cover on nearly every issue we cover. In just the last few years, the Times has been called anti-white, anti-Asian, anti-Inuit. Anti-Hindu, anti-Catholic, anti-Hasidic, anti-Africa, and anti-Europe. We’ve been called anti-public schools, and anti-Harvard. Anti-fracking, and anti-environment. Anti-CEO and anti-union. Anti-Elon Musk and Anti-Queen Elizabeth. Anti-crypto and anti-yoga pants. Sadly, that is far from a complete list.”

This is the new reality; it is the world journalists and readers now must live in. There is no easy answer and no way that a fractured readership, looking for reinforcement of its own narrative of events, will be satisfied. 

I only know one North Star to follow in such a world: Get out and do the reporting. Don’t worry about whose narrative it fits—that’s the job of partisans, not journalists. If government officials seek to win better coverage through acts of intimidation, stand up to them and expose them. And remember that, as an editor I deeply respected used to say when rallying his journalistic troops, the First Amendment is first for a reason. 

David E. Sanger, a former Distinguished Wilson Scholar, is a White House and National Security correspondent of The New York Times, where he has worked for more than four decades. While at the Wilson Center, he published New Cold Wars: China’s Rise, Russia’s Invasion and America’s Struggle to Defend the West, with Wilson scholar Mary K. Brooks. The views in this article are his own.

Cover photo: Members of Occupy Cincinnati display the First Amendment to the US Constitution on cardboard signs as a man enters the Hamilton County Courthouse, Tuesday, December 6, 2011, in Cincinnati, where courts were scheduled to begin hearing arguments on the legality of arrests made in a local park. AP Photo/Al Behrman.