Ladder
Ladder: lawsuits against the press
A government, a government agency or an official sues a journalist or a news organisation, usually for defamation or breach of contract, whether the official acts in office or in a personal capacity. Lawsuits that fail can still cost the defendant years of work and large legal fees.
The number of entries reflects the depth of this record, not the severity of a country's conduct.
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2Pressure
Using state power short of prosecution to change coverage: regulatory threats, licence reviews, funding cuts, lawsuits by officials, official "fake news" or "foreign agent" labels, advertising pressure, tax audits.
President-elect Trump sued the Des Moines Register and longtime pollster Ann Selzer under Iowa's consumer fraud law over her final pre-election poll, which showed Kamala Harris ahead in Iowa days before Trump won the state; a judge later questioned whether the case could proceed without discouragin…
Ongoing 10 July 2026 · 2 sources · Full entry
60 Minutes executive producer Bill Owens resigned, saying corporate owner Paramount had begun supervising the program's content in new ways while it faced President Trump's lawsuit over a Harris interview and pursued a sale requiring federal approval; the program publicly said on air that it had lo…
Sustained 22 April 2025 · 1 source · Full entry
On July 1, 2025, Paramount, the parent company of the United States broadcaster CBS News, announced that it would settle for US$16 million a lawsuit brought by Donald Trump, the president of the United States, over how the CBS program 60 Minutes edited a 2024 interview with Kamala Harris, then vice…
Sustained 1 July 2025 · 1 source · Full entry
President Trump sued The Wall Street Journal, its owner Rupert Murdoch and two reporters for at least $10 billion, disputing the newspaper's report describing a bawdy letter he was said to have sent Jeffrey Epstein for a 2003 birthday album.
Ongoing · 2 sources · Full entry
President Trump sued The New York Times and four of its journalists for $15 billion over articles and a book published before the 2024 election; a judge dismissed the sprawling original complaint for violating basic pleading rules, and Trump refiled a shorter version a month later.
Ongoing 16 October 2025 · 2 sources · Full entry
A month after journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia published reporting on members of Malta's government, the economy minister had her bank account frozen, one of dozens of legal actions she faced before she was killed in a car bombing in October 2017.
Note: A minister ordered a reporter's bank account frozen a month after her story on his colleagues, one of dozens of suits filed against her before her killing; United States lawsuits against the press in the record have not frozen a journalist's assets.
Unknown · 3 sources · Full entry
A Moscow court fined the magazine The New Times 22.3 million rubles, about $338,000, for a paperwork lapse under Russia's foreign agents law, a sum its editor said was designed to force the outlet to close.
Note: A court fined an outlet $338,000 over a foreign agents paperwork lapse, a sum its editor said was designed to force its closure; United States lawsuits against the press have not sought a fine that could end an outlet's operations.
Ongoing 26 October 2018 · 3 sources · Full entry
An investigation found paid services in Kazakhstan filing fabricated copyright complaints, impersonating global brands, to get social media platforms to remove journalists' accounts and posts, alongside criminal prosecutions of the press.
Note: An investigation found paid services filing fabricated copyright complaints to remove Kazakh journalists' accounts, bypassing courts entirely; United States lawsuits against the press in the record proceed openly through the court system.
Ongoing 20 August 2026 · 2 sources · Full entry
3Punish
Legal or physical action against individual journalists or sources: subpoenas and record seizures, prosecutions, arrests, detention, expulsions, visa denials, assault where a government actor is involved.
President Theodore Roosevelt sought federal criminal libel indictments against the publishers of the New York World and the Indianapolis News after they reported that he and other officials had profited from the United States' purchase of the Panama Canal.
Reversed 3 January 1911 · 3 sources · Full entry
L. B. Sullivan, an elected Montgomery, Alabama city commissioner who supervised the police department, sued The New York Times for libel over a 1960 civil rights advertisement and won a $500,000 jury verdict.
Reversed 9 March 1964 · 2 sources · Full entry
The United States colonial government in the Philippines enacted a criminal libel law in 1901 that Governor-General William Howard Taft defended by saying Filipinos were unused to the freedom of the press.
Upheld by a court 1 January 1914 · 2 sources · Full entry
A Manila court convicted Rappler's Maria Ressa and researcher Reynaldo Santos Jr. of criminal cyber libel and sentenced them to up to six years in prison, over a 2012 story republished after the cybercrime law used to charge them took effect.
Note: A court convicted an outlet's executive editor of criminal cyber libel and imposed a prison sentence over a story published before the cybercrime law existed; United States lawsuits against the press in the record are civil, seeking damages, not prison time.
Ongoing 15 June 2020 · 3 sources · Full entry
Turkish authorities tried journalist Sedef Kabas repeatedly for insulting President Erdogan over her on-air comments and tweets questioning his college diploma and alleging corruption, an offense carrying up to four years in prison.
Note: A journalist faced a second prosecution carrying up to four years in prison for tweets questioning the president's diploma, after an earlier conviction on the same charge; United States lawsuits against the press seek damages, not prison time.
Ongoing 22 June 2023 · 2 sources · Full entry
All ladders · Lawsuits against the press: by country and year · The United States chapter