Welcome to The Press Freedom Report

All things media and democracy

Welcome to The Press Freedom Report.

I came to reporting on press freedom by accident. Now I think it’s among the most important beats in the world.

At some point during college, I began hunting for a journalism internship for the upcoming summer.

I saw that Voice of America was hiring for a press freedom reporting intern. It sounded interesting, so I applied and was accepted, and then was able to produce original coverage on threats to media freedom around the world. I covered everything from disinformation campaigns in Ethiopia to censorship in China.

After my internship concluded several months later, I continued sporadically freelancing for VOA on the press freedom beat. Then I was suddenly graduating from college. I interned at Foreign Policy magazine, and then VOA posted that it was hiring for a full-time press freedom reporter. I applied, got the job, and started a few weeks later.

From there, I led VOA’s award-winning coverage on major press freedom stories, including the wrongful detentions of American journalists Alsu Kurmasheva and Evan Gershkovich in Russia, the police raid on the Marion County Record newspaper in Kansas, and transnational repression facing exiled journalists in Berlin and Prague. I’m deeply grateful to my sources, and my editor, for trusting me to tell those stories.

Although I stumbled upon the press freedom beat by accident, I quickly came to believe that covering threats facing journalists around the world was one of the most important things I could do as a reporter.

Press freedom is under threat more than ever — in the United States and globally. From arrests and killings to lawfare and transnational repression, journalism is facing a multi-pronged assault from powerful actors who would much rather reporters were silent, according to rights groups.

Press freedom is a way to examine U.S. and international politics. And it’s not just the health of democracy that rights groups warn is at stake. Threats to press freedom also have a tangible impact on the lives of individual people. Communities worldwide depend on access to independent information to make informed decisions every day. When journalists are targeted, the public also suffers.

I’m launching The Press Freedom Report about one month after I was sidelined from reporting at Voice of America amid the Trump administration’s efforts to dismantle the news agency and its sister outlets. These issues are too important for me to sit back and not report on them. Around the world, journalists are courageous and resilient in the face of immense threats to their well-being. Their stories — and the challenges they face — matter.

I’ve enjoyed freelancing for various outlets over the past month, and I plan to continue doing so. But I wanted to create this newsletter so that I could report even more, and so that the top press freedom news headlines could all be in one place. The Press Freedom Report will be a nonpartisan, one-stop digest for the latest press freedom news.

The Press Freedom Report will feature my original, balanced reporting on media freedom, exclusive interviews with journalists and experts, and the top headlines on media freedom stories to follow from the United States and around the world. The newsletter, which I’m producing without an editor, will be delivered to paid subscribers twice per week.

I’m grateful that my first professional foray into journalism was covering press freedom. VOA’s motto is “A Free Press Matters.” While VOA’s future remains uncertain, it’s an ethos that still guides me.

Thank you for reading. I look forward to gaining your trust.

Best,

Liam Scott