WASHINGTON, April 6, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — National Press Club President Mark Schoeff Jr. today issued the following statement after President Donald Trump’s public remarks that a news outlet should reveal its confidential sources or face consequences including jail time:
“President Trump’s public suggestion that journalists should be jailed if they refuse to reveal confidential sources is a direct threat to the First Amendment and the core function of a free press.
No president should call for jailing journalists who refuse to betray their sources. The ability to protect confidential sources is essential to newsgathering and to informing the public on matters of urgent national interest. Those protections are at risk when the president tries to bully news organizations to disclose confidential sources.
The government has a legitimate responsibility to safeguard classified information. But that responsibility does not extend to punishing journalists for lawful reporting or coercing them to disclose sources.
Comments like these are not theoretical. They risk chilling constitutionally protected reporting and sending a dangerous signal to those who would seek to undermine press freedom.
Such a curb on the news process is particularly dangerous at a time when the public should be fully informed about the U.S. war against Iran. The public has a right to know, and journalists’ work is crucial in fulfilling it.
We urge all public officials to respect the constitutional role of a free and independent press and to refrain from rhetoric or actions that threaten it.”
Media contact: Beth Francesco, National Press Club Journalism Institute executive director, media@press.org
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SOURCE National Press Club
