This week’s readings trace the steps the Trump Administration has taken to tighten its grip on the press. Many of them reported resistance attempts from more enduring outlets and political veterans. However, to me, what was most striking was what was not reported: the public’s reaction. Or rather, the lack of one.
As Rebecca Hamilton points out, “in a democracy, the public serves as the ultimate check on State power.” Yet, today, that check seems absent. No large-scale demonstrations, no widespread outrage on social media. The Trump administration’s efforts to control information are not shocking in themselves. Silencing unfavourable coverage is a perennial temptation for those in power. The striking fact is that the administration can get away with it. The issue is not only their will, but the collective silence of the most.
Hamilton warns that censorship need not take the form of government bans. Instead, she calls attention to the emergence of what she calls “self-censorship.” The examples are telling: the WP suppressing a critical cartoon, the LA Times altering a submission about a controversial appointee. Such choices arise less from explicit White House orders than from a climate of anticipated punishment. Flimsy lawsuits against CBS, ABC, and Meta serve as warnings. As Hamilton notes: “Risk crossing Trump at your peril.”
What makes this dynamic more troubling is how official actions reframe the very role of journalism. The May 2025 executive order ending federal support for NPR and PBS insisted that “no media outlet has a constitutional right to taxpayer subsidies” and characterized these institutions as “biased.” The order does not outlaw reporting. Instead, it shifts the logic: independence becomes partisanship, survival tied to profitability or government-approved neutrality. The press is recast as a market commodity.
And yet—where is the public? Under ordinary circumstances, such executive overreach might spark protests, letters, campaigns. Instead, the broader population seems disengaged. Gibbs offers a sobering explanation: mainstream journalism is no longer the central shaper of public opinion. Most people consume information through fragmented channels—friends, family, influencers—that lack the expertise and impartiality to build a comprehensive picture. When news travels primarily through these fractured networks, attacks on press independence register as just another headline in the feed, quickly absorbed and quickly forgotten.
This fragmentation helps explain why even dramatic events, such as CBS paying millions to settle Trump’s lawsuit and canceling Stephen Colbert’s The Late Show, have been absorbed by audiences as corporate maneuvering rather than democratic backsliding. The missing outrage stems not just from apathy but from an ecosystem conditioning citizens to see journalism as entertainment—consumable, and eventually discardable.
Together, these developments suggest that the crisis of press freedom is not only about state power but about public disengagement. The Trump Administration exploits legal loopholes and corporate vulnerabilities, but it succeeds most fully because the public no longer treats journalism as essential to democracy. Freedom erodes not only through censorship but through indifference, when the press becomes just another product on the shelf and citizens no longer feel compelled to defend it.
