AG Sulzberger: ‘We Will Not Compromise’ on Independent Reporting

It's a real honor to be introduced by such a legendary First Amendment lawyer-someone who has not only won key legal protections for the press but also happens to have helped keep my grandfather out of prison. Thank you, Floyd. And thank you also to the Press Clause Coalition and the New York City Bar Association for hosting me this evening. I'm honored - and a bit surprised - that you would kick off this august gathering of First Amendment scholars with comments from the Wordle guy.

In all seriousness, the project you're launching today is vitally important at this moment, when press freedom is facing its most serious test in generations. Too many people today appear afraid to stand up and defend their own rights, core national principles and the broader public interest. So I'm grateful that you all continue to uphold our country's foundational commitment to free expression and a free press.

We at the Times are lucky to have some terrific First Amendment lawyers ourselves, some of whom are here tonight: David McCraw and Jackson Busch as well as our general counsel Diane Brayton. We've also had the good fortune - if not always in the happiest of circumstances - to work with many more of you.

I'll try to avoid misstatements of law tonight largely by avoiding the topic in any real detail. I know far less about the "press clause" than Floyd and others here tonight, so I will instead focus on why your efforts to strengthen press freedom matters so much, and what The Times is seeing on the frontlines of the fight.

Last fall, the Defense Department issued an ultimatum to the Pentagon press corps: sign what amounted to a loyalty oath, or get out. Under this new media policy, a reporter who asked questions or published information that Pentagon higher-ups disapproved of could be arbitrarily stripped of their media credentials. This attempted crackdown came, as such efforts often do, after a cascade of unwanted headlines: troubling accounts of the defense secretary's personal conduct; efforts to remake military culture to be less inclusive and more aggressive; legally questionable military actions from Latin America to North Korea to the Middle East.

At The New York Times, we regard journalistic independence as central to our promise to the public. We will not compromise our commitment to report without fear or favor. So like every other major news organization we handed in our press passes. Even outlets openly supportive of President Trump, like Fox News and Newsmax, refused to sign away their rights.

As the press corp was ushered out, a new group of MAGA commentators and influencers were welcomed inside the Pentagon. Pro-Trump firebrand Laura Loomer. The news site started by Mike Lindell, a funder of the "Stop the Steal" movement. Trump's Attorney General pick Matt Gaetz.

The top Defense Department spokesman boasted the press corps swap-out would "circumvent the lies of the mainstream media and get real news directly to the American people."

These restrictions did not stop our reporting, of course. We've shown that with scoop after scoop, such as the definitive accounts of how Trump decided to go to war with Iran, why defense officials soured on the AI company Anthropic, and the dangerous depletion of U.S. missile stockpiles. But being in the building is important, too. And we viewed the Pentagon's efforts to censor and punish journalists as such an egregious violation of the First Amendment that we decided to take the world's most powerful military to court.

Many of our peers argued that, given Trump's frequent attacks on the press, this one was worth letting go. In fact, several told me directly that they feared sticking their necks out would invite retaliation. But rights are just ink on paper unless they're exercised. Standing up for press freedom in court and losing is still a much healthier outcome than standing down and letting the administration simply rewrite the rules. Our country has some of the strongest legal protections in the world for free expression and due process. They mean nothing if the press is too timid to defend them.

The judge vindicated our confidence in the law. In March, he threw out the Pentagon media policy and ordered our press passes restored. The legal fight isn't over - the administration has appealed and, in the meantime, thrown up Kafkaesque hurdles to keep our journalists out, requiring us to file yet another suit. But Judge Paul Friedman's opinion articulates well what's at stake. He wrote:

"Those who drafted the First Amendment believed that the nation's security requires a free press and an informed people and that such security is endangered by governmental suppression." He continues: "That principle has preserved the nation's security for almost 250 years. It must not be abandoned now."

That 250th anniversary our nation is celebrating happens to coincide with the 175th anniversary of The New York Times.

I find these shared milestones fitting because the story of our great nation and its most intrepid chronicler - its paper of record - are bound up in one another. America's abiding commitment to free expression and free inquiry has enabled the model of journalism "without fear or favor" that is the key to The Times's enduring success. In turn, the commitment of The Times, and other independent news organizations, to providing the public reliable information and accountability has strengthened our country and helped it to thrive in countless ways. A free press depends on a free nation, and a free nation depends on a free press.

Now that doesn't mean we've always gotten along with the people running our country. Over the years, we've confronted our fair share of government overreach from left, right, and center. And if you can find the president who didn't want to throttle us at some point I'd like his name.

The Lincoln administration censored our founding editor's report on the disastrous Union defeat at Bull Run. Senators upset with our coverage in the lead up to World War I investigated our finances. Local officials in Alabama tried to litigate us out of existence so we couldn't keep covering the civil rights movement. President Kennedy wiretapped our military correspondent's home phone because his reporting on the U.S.-Soviet arms race was too accurate. President Nixon sued to block our reporting on the secret military history of the Vietnam War known as the Pentagon Papers. The second President Bush warned us we'd have blood on our hands if we disclosed his administration's warrantless surveillance of American citizens. And President Obama spent most of his term using the legal system to try to force one of our journalists to reveal a confidential source.

So on one level, the challenges we face are part of a long - if not exactly proud - American tradition. But it serves no one to sidestep the reality that President Trump has used an increasingly broad suite of tools and powers to go after the press far more aggressively than his modern predecessors.

This started as a rhetorical project. As he first ran for office, President Trump called reporting he didn't like "fake news." Then came talk of the press as "enemies of the people," an old Stalinist phrase. Then charges that unflattering stories are treasonous or seditious. The legendary "60 Minutes" correspondent Lesley Stahl told me that President Trump was explicit about the goal driving this incendiary rhetoric. "You know why I do it?" she remembered him telling her. "I do it to discredit you all and demean you all so when you write negative stories about me, no one will believe you."

There is evidence he's found some success. About two-thirds of poll respondents now say they don't trust the press to report the news fairly, accurately, or in the public interest. Many say they prefer to get their news directly from the president, who has launched his own "White House Wire" and who one poll found was the top "news influencer" in the country. But these rhetorical attacks served a secondary purpose as well, laying the groundwork for more substantial actions against the press.

Always litigious, the president has grown bolder about turning to the civil courts to punish journalists and news organizations. He sued the Des Moines Register for consumer fraud over an unfavorable poll. He sued The Wall Street Journal for defamation over reporting on his ties to Jeffrey Epstein. He sued ABC, CBS, and the BBC. His most recent lawsuit against The Times marks his third against us in my tenure. The Journal suit has been dismissed, and I expect the others that are challenged in court will be, too. But some news organizations chose to settle despite the law appearing to be on their side. And, as everybody here knows, even unsuccessful lawsuits impose real costs - legal fees, lost time - that may make a news organization think twice about future reporting.

These anti-press efforts extend well beyond the courts. The administration has actively used a range of executive levers to pressure disfavored news organizations as well. The FCC has been most active, launching dubious investigations into supposed political bias at the BBC, NPR, PBS, and CBS following the president's complaints. Its chairman has threatened not to renew broadcast licenses over critical coverage of immigration raids and the Iran war, and even a comedian's joke about the president.

At the same time, the administration has effectively steered a broadcast outlet, CBS, and a social media platform, TikTok, into the hands of one of the president's wealthiest supporters-with a cable news channel, CNN, likely to follow later this year. Under this new ownership, CBS has already altered programming, personnel, and policies in ways that align more closely with the administration's preferences. Dispensing with even the pretense of journalistic norms, CBS and its owners recently hosted a party "honoring the Trump White House." Less widely known, but no less consequential, the FCC - with the president's encouragement - waived longstanding limits to approve the unprecedented consolidation of the local TV news market. That company, Nexstar, which would reach 80 percent of American households, has declared itself "the anti-fake news," among other moves to curry favor with the president.

More troubling still, the administration has shown a growing interest in using law enforcement powers to aid these efforts, too.

Other presidents have abused leak investigations to create risk of imprisonment for journalists who refuse to give up their confidential sources - a reminder that this nation would greatly benefit from a federal shield law limiting this type of overreach. Trump has long supported this tactic. Only a year and a half into his term, he and his aides have publicly threatened or pursued over a dozen such investigations into Times reporting alone. The unprecedented FBI raid on the home of a Washington Post reporter and seizure of her devices - nominally as part of a single leak case yet with the risk of exposing her entire source network - showed a willingness to follow through on such threats.

We're also seeing attempts to directly criminalize the act of the reporting. Homeland Security agents have detained, attacked and arrested clearly identified journalists covering ICE protests. The Justice Department charged journalists with violating federal civil rights laws for covering a protest that entered a Minnesota church. Immigration officers detained a foreign student for over a month and tried to deport her over an op-ed published in a college newspaper.

Last month, the FBI took the first steps toward opening a criminal investigation into a Times reporter for ordinary newsgathering. At issue was a revelatory story about the FBI Director reassigning bureau jets and personnel to ferry around his girlfriend. The purported crime? Interviewing people with direct knowledge of the situation, attending public events and seeking to speak with the subject. Even after Justice Department lawyers got wind of the inquiry and shut it down, the FBI continued to suggest such reporting efforts had "crossed lines of stalking."

Everyone in this room understands the First Amendment has withstood worse. John Adams used the Alien & Sedition Acts to indict publishers aligned with his opposition. Abraham Lincoln shut down newspapers and imprisoned editors critical of his wartime aims. Woodrow Wilson prosecuted publishers and journalists under his newly enacted Espionage Act. But over the last century, this sort of overreach has come to be regarded as essentially un-American.

Though modern U.S. history offers few precedents, such anti-press efforts have sadly become a hallmark of eroding democracies abroad, in places like India and Hungary, where we've seen an emerging playbook aimed at gutting independent news organizations. Prior to Trump's reelection, I wrote an essay for The Washington Post urging others in my profession - already badly weakened by declining revenue and technological intermediation - to study this playbook so they could prepare to defend against such efforts on our own soil.

Since then, a number of news organizations have risen to the occasion by pushing back on the Trump administration's efforts to attack and punish independent journalism. That's important because, without brave clients, good lawyers can neither assert nor defend the rights of a free and independent press. Some news organizations have indeed sued to vindicate their rights, like The Associated Press over White House access and NPR over funding cuts. Others, like the Journal, have stood by their reporting in the face of retaliatory lawsuits. I'm proud to say The Times has done both.

Then there are the media leaders who have settled winnable cases to appease the administration or advance their business interests. Those who have transformed their editorial pages to placate the president. Those who have let the president rewrite their styleguides, telling themselves it's harmless to swap out the Gulf of Mexico for the Gulf of America to avoid something worse. Those who have written unusually large checks for the benefit of the president. Such capitulation, even seemingly small instances of it, serves only to embolden the administration to keep attacking the press.

But let me end on a note of optimism, with a reminder of the path we hope our nation one day returns to.

Several years ago, The Times won a Pulitzer for a series that exposed the civilian death toll of U.S. airstrikes overseas. The work took more than five years to report, often in places so dangerous the Pentagon wouldn't send its own soldiers there. The revelations were devastating: hundreds of dead never tallied by the military, little effort to investigate mistakes or bad intelligence, an internal culture of impunity. We showed this pattern held all the way through the very last airstrike of the 20-year war in Afghanistan, an attack on a suspected terrorist that killed 10 people - none of them terrorists, seven of them children. The revelation was initially met with the usual bluster and denials - the military called it "a righteous strike." Eventually, Pentagon officials were forced to admit what our reporting had undeniably shown - that their "righteous strike" had in fact been "a tragic mistake." A package of reforms soon followed.

Now, it would be an understatement to say the Biden administration was no fan of The Times. The White House believed, among other things, that we were far too aggressive in covering questions about the president's age and fitness. And perhaps fearing such questions the president refused to sit with our reporters for a single on-the-record interview during his term.

Yet months after our airstrike reporting was published, the Defense Department press secretary did something extraordinary. At a Pentagon briefing, he publicly congratulated The Times for winning a Pulitzer Prize for the work. He said, and I quote: "I cannot say that this process was pleasant. But I guess that's the whole point. It's not supposed to be. That's what a free press at its very best does - it holds us to account and makes us think even as it informs."

That recognition - praise, even - amounted to a remarkable expression of tolerance for the uncomfortable, sometimes adversarial role of the press. Even those who chafe at our questions, who lament our revelations, can - sometimes, with clear eyes - see the value that such reporting provides. That may be asking too much in this particular moment, from this particular administration. But the press must carry on, as it has in previous moments of pressure, with faith in the power of reporting, the public we serve, and in the idea captured by the founders and echoed centuries later by Judge Friedman, that the truth will always matter.

I want to express my gratitude to all of you for your role in defending America's free and independent press. Without your tireless, fearless counsel, my profession would surely stand on shakier ground. Thank you.