Journalists are bracing for the outcome of the 2024 U.S. presidential election. CPJ’s research ahead of the November vote finds that the hostile media climate fostered during Donald Trump’s presidency has continued to fester, with members of the press confronting challenges — including violence, lawsuits, online harassment, and police attacks — that could shape the global media environment for decades.
CPJ’s interviews with journalists, lawyers and press freedom advocates over several months ahead of the November vote found that media workers are confronting challenges that include an increased risk of violence, arrest, on- and offline harassment, legal battles and criminalization. Political polarization, the legacy of the January 6 assault on the Capitol, and a lack of police accountability for their treatment of journalists emerged as additional causes for concern.
Reporters told CPJ that antagonism toward the media leaves them feeling less safe working in their home environments. Some say they feel as though they are operating in a different reality from their readers; that the “alternative facts” of the Trump years have spun entirely different narratives about current events, including the upcoming election.
Overseas, journalists fear that a second Trump term would again embolden foreign leaders to restrict their own media, negatively affecting the global press freedom landscape and undermining those in regions that rely on U.S. aid and support.
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