What comes to mind when you think of the US? Is it our freedom of speech and freedom of press? Right now, President Donald Trump has sued and freezed funding against media outlets that have different opinions than him. This blatant erosion of our freedom is frightening and should not be taken lightly.
Recently, late-night programs like “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” and “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” have been canceled or suspended. There is speculation that Colbert’s show was pulled because the show had criticized President Trump and an $8 billion merger deal between Paramount Global and Skydance Media was approved by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission days after the cancellation. Kimmel’s show was suspended after he made a comment about the president and his supporters’ reaction to Charlie Kirk’s assassination. According to PBS News, President Trump has filed lawsuits against outlets whose coverage he dislikes, trying to bend them to his will.
President Trump has even pulled government funding from outlets like NPR and PBS which are non-profit media organizations. Those organizations distribute educational content for free. A significant amount of Americans use those resources to get information and his reasoning for the defunding was because it was biased media.
While it is true that there can be repercussions for the things you say, that does not excuse the actions that the current President is making. People should be reprimanded when they say real threats or obscenities, but what happens when they get reprimanded for speaking about a harmless opinion? This would certainly lead to an authoritarian government. The current administration has been acting eerily similar to how Viktor Orbán, the Hungarian prime minister, took control of the media in Hungary. Orbán had used media buyouts and shut down critical media.
The very foundation of our country was built on our freedoms. We should not sit back and watch them be violated. President Trump is censoring our media and we need to stand up for ourselves. Express your ideas!
