November 26, 2024 — The Society of Environmental Journalists urges the U.S. Senate to pass S. 2074, the bipartisan PRESS Act, in the current Congress. It is urgently needed and long overdue.
SEJ is a membership organization of 1,500 journalists who cover climate change and the most pressing environmental challenges of our time. Our members rely on their ability to protect sources and the information they provide to hold government officials and corporations accountable, report corruption, expose malfeasance and publicize the most important stories of our time.
The PRESS (Protect Reporters from Exploitative State Spying) Act would shield journalists from being compelled to reveal their confidential sources and other sensitive information gathered in the reporting process.
The House passed this bill in January 2024 with broad Republican support. Its chief sponsor, Rep. Kevin Kiley, R-CA, reminded his colleagues that “liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and journalists are often the first to expose government fraud, waste, abuse, and encroachments on personal freedoms. In a free country, we need to make sure that the government cannot unmask journalists' sources without good cause, and that is why the need for this legislation is so strong.”
The PRESS Act has languished in the Senate, however, even though the Senate version also had Republican cosponsors. Now, President-elect Donald Trump, who has repeatedly voiced antipathy to the press, has voiced his opposition to it and urged Republicans to bar its passage.
SEJ believes the President-elect and members of his party should reconsider. As the bill’s advocates have pointed out, the PRESS Act would protect conservative, independent and nontraditional journalists just as much as it would those in the mainstream press.
Indeed, one of the most outspoken advocates for the Press Act is Catherine Herridge, a former Fox News reporter facing fines — and possibly even jail time — for refusing to identify her source for her stories about the founder of a Virginia school attended by U.S. military personnel who has ties to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army.
In a recent appearance on NewsNation, Herridge said her reporting on those and other stories relied on confidential sources and “a credible pledge that I would protect their identity.” She said if she could sit down with Trump, she’d remind him of how he had praised her reporting eight years ago that found flaws in the investigation of Russian collusion in his 2016 election.
“It’s not a political thing,” Herridge concluded. “It’s really a democracy thing.”
For the sake of democracy and the First Amendment, SEJ urges the Senate to pass the PRESS Act without further delay.
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