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View article on FAIR's website ([link removed])
Hey NPR, Free Speech Isn’t Just a Vibe Julie Hollar ([link removed])


Green Card–holding students are being abducted from the streets by agents of the state for attending protests ([link removed]) and writing op-eds ([link removed]) . News outlets are being investigated by the FCC ([link removed]) for reporting that displeases the president. Federal web pages are being scrubbed of a lengthy list of words ([link removed]) , including "race," "transgender," "women" and "climate."
NPR: Freedom of speech is shifting under the Trump administration. We're exploring how

"Is President Trump a protector of the First Amendment, or is he the biggest threat to it since the McCarthy Era?" NPR (Morning Edition, 4/7/25 ([link removed]) ) asked—with the argument for the former position being that "conservatives are just, in general, much more willing to speak their mind."

NPR responded to this shocking government attack on free speech with a Morning Edition series on "The State of the First Amendment," whose introductory episode's headline (4/7/25 ([link removed]) ) declared freedom of speech to be "shifting under the Trump administration"; it promised that the show would be "exploring how."

The wishy-washy language wasn't a promising start, and the segment only went downhill from there, taking an "on the one hand/on the other hand" framing to an assault on core democratic rights.

Host Leila Fadel ([link removed]) explained: "All this week, we are going to look at the state of free speech in the United States. Who feels more free to speak? Who feels silenced?" After offering soundbites from people on "both sides" of this debate, she asked:

Is President Trump a protector of the First Amendment, or is he the biggest threat to it since the McCarthy era in the 1940s and '50s, when fearmongering around Soviet and Communist influence led to the political persecution of academics and leftists?

It's a vital question with a very clear and obvious answer—one that NPR, facing an investigation ([link removed]) from the FCC into its corporate funding and a drive by Trump to end its federal funding ([link removed]) , and laboring under ideological overseers installed by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (FAIR.org, 10/24/24 ([link removed]) ), refused to offer its listeners. (Trump signed a new executive order last night to attempt to defund NPR and PBS, accusing ([link removed]) them of "radical, woke propaganda disguised as 'news.'")


** 'Too early to tell'
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Leila Fadel

NPR's Leila Fadel (4/7/25 ([link removed]) ): "Are free speech protections broadening right now under President Trump, or is censorship shifting?" (Photo: Mike Morgan/NPR)

After airing Trump's claims to have "stopped all government censorship and brought back free speech in America," Fadel offered brief descriptions of "attacks on the press" and actions that have "broken other norms as well, often in legally questionable ways." (The first example: "Universities face uncertain futures as they become targets of the Trump administration.")

The episode then took its balanced framing to an interview segment featuring two legal scholars, Lee Bollinger, former Columbia University president, and Jonathan Turley ([link removed]) , a Fox News regular. Fadel introduced the two by noting that "they see the threats to [the First Amendment] in this moment differently. Bollinger sees danger under Trump," while "Turley says he thinks this president could be an unexpected advocate."

In her questioning of Turley, Fadel did rebut his claim ([link removed]) that the Biden administration and social media companies colluded to censor conservative speech. She then brought up "actions by this administration that seem to be chilling speech," citing "college professors warning students ([link removed]) not to discuss or post opinions about Israel's war in Gaza or Russia's war in Ukraine for fear of deportation or arrest." She noted as well that "government websites have taken down ([link removed]) thousands of pages featuring information on vaccines, hate crimes, diversity." She asked: "Are free speech protections broadening right now under President Trump, or is censorship shifting?"

It's perhaps meant to be a tough question to make him admit that calling Trump a protector of free speech would be laughable if it weren't so dangerous. (Turley responds, "Well, it's too early to tell whether the Trump administration will make free speech truly part of its legacy in the second term.") But Fadel's language—"is censorship shifting?"—turns around and concedes the right's false claims of censorship under the Biden administration (which she’d just rebutted!). Fadel and NPR offer only two ways of looking at the situation: Trump is increasing free speech, or censorship is just a swinging pendulum whose victims change as administrations change.

The segment wraps up with Bollinger and Turley finding at least one point of agreement: that the arrest and attempted deportation of Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil ([link removed]) violates, in Turley's words, "part of the core protections that define us as a people."


** 'They feel more free'
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NPR: Freedom of speech is shifting under the Trump administration. We're exploring how

NPR (4/7/25 ([link removed]) ) framed the First Amendment question as "who felt censored before President Trump returned to office and who feels stifled now."

The online version of the show (4/7/25 ([link removed]) ), in which the audio transcript is condensed into an article format, bent even further backwards to find balance. It explained that the series "will explore who felt censored before President Trump returned to office and who feels stifled now."

That exploration started by naming real censorship that has already taken place: "scrubbing reports and federal grant applications of words the Trump administration has banned," fears that "participating in protests could lead to deportation," an online portal ([link removed]) where people can "file complaints about diversity, equity and inclusion lessons in class with the US Department of Education."

If this were a report on a foreign country, it's hard to imagine NPR offering an "on the other hand" to that list of clearly authoritarian crackdowns on speech. But here comes the next paragraph, trotting out the obligatory balance:

Yet plenty of others—including anti-abortion activists, the far-right activist group Moms for Liberty and members of university Republican clubs—say they feel more free today to express views without fear of a backlash now that President Trump is back in office.

The article eliminates references to Turley and Bollinger, but includes two quotes. One is from a history teacher who feels afraid to answer student questions related to the Trump administration. That's "balanced" by one from the president of the College Republicans at the University of California, Berkeley, who says they have more members willing to "be outwardly and openly conservative than we did before the election."


** Orwellian redefinition
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FAIR.org: New York Times’ Fear of Ordinary People Talking Back

When you define the threat to free speech, as the New York Times (3/18/22 ([link removed]) ) does, as "being shamed or shunned"—that is, criticized by others' speech—it opens the door to suppressing speech in the name of free speech.

This absurd and harmful false balance NPR creates is predicated on the idea that "free speech" can mean simply how unconstrained a person feels to speak what might be unpopular opinions, including the various forms of bigotry and disinformation that have been unleashed by the Trump administration. But free speech is not, in fact, about feelings; it's about consequences ([link removed]) . It's one thing to feel less afraid that your peers will criticize or even yell at you ([link removed]) for speaking your opinions on campus. It's another to fear that expressing your opinions will bring down official sanction ([link removed]) , up to and including banishment ([link removed]) from the country.

Free speech is not the freedom from "backlash" from those who disagree with your views, despite the MAGA movement's best efforts to convince people of that—aided and abetted by many "liberal ([link removed]) " elites ([link removed]) and pundits ([link removed]) who feel they have been "canceled ([link removed]) " by left-wing criticism of their own (often bigoted ([link removed]) ) views ([link removed]) . If college Republicans, anti-abortion activists or the Moms for Liberty feel constrained by peers harshly criticizing them or not inviting them to speak at public events, that's not censorship; that's ideas being
contested in the public arena. Their right-wing perspectives still have many, many places to be heard, including the huge right-wing media ecosystem.

NPR concluded its article, “[Trump's] critics say his concern for free speech is only for speech his administration finds acceptable.” That is, in fact, the only way you can make sense of the claim that Trump stands for "free speech"—by defining it as the ability of the approved people to speak, while those who would criticize (and thereby "cancel") them are silenced (FAIR.org, 3/4/25 ([link removed]) ).

The Trump administration is bringing the power of the state down on people who express opinions and ideas it finds objectionable. The consequences of that power, for both individuals and democracy, are quite dire. When NPR talks about "who feels more free to speak" and "who feels silenced," it's defining free speech the way MAGA wants it to be defined—as a vibe, not as a right. Ultimately, though, NPR's complicity in this Orwellian redefinition will not protect them from Trump's vendetta.
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ACTION ALERT: You can send a message to NPR public editor Kelly McBride here ([link removed]) , or via Bluesky:@kellymcb.bsky.social ([link removed]) . Please remember that respectful communication is the most effective. Feel free to leave a copy of your message in the comments thread of this post.


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