Biden administration: CPJ to publish report and host press briefing on press freedom

NEW YORK: The Committee to Protect Journalists will release “‘Night and day’: The Biden administration and the press,” a special report examining what the White House has done to support domestic and global press freedom in the 12 months since President Joe Biden’s inauguration.

The report, written by former Washington Post Executive Editor Leonard Downie, Jr. and to be published on January 13, looks at the stark differences between the Biden White House and the highly charged rhetoric of the Trump administration.

Downie’s interviews with journalists, press freedom experts, and members of Biden’s team detail the current administration’s relationship with the media and concerns among press freedom advocates about issues like Biden’s limited availability to journalists, the administration’s slow responses to requests for information, its planned extradition of Julian Assange, restrictions on media access at the U.S. southern border and limited U.S. assistance to Afghan journalists.

The report comes out less than a month after the administration’s first Summit for Democracy, and a little more than a year since CPJ published a white paper and recommendations outlining ways the Biden administration can strengthen press freedom around the world.

Downie, CPJ’s Deputy Executive Director Robert Mahoney, and Vice President of Editorial for Freedom of the Press Foundation and Managing Editor of the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, Kirstin McCudden, will discuss the findings of the report in an online launch event moderated by Katherine Jacobsen, CPJ U.S. and Canada program coordinator.