Nearly three-quarters of Americans say press freedom is highly important to society, but many also support government limits on reporting they believe is false or threatens national security, a new Pew Research Center study found.
Seventy-three percent of U.S. adults described press freedom as extremely or very important. Yet when forced to choose, 53% said preventing inaccurate reporting is more important even if press freedom is limited, while 45% prioritized a free press even if some coverage is inaccurate.
The findings show broad support for the principle of press freedom alongside sharp disagreements about who counts as the press, when reporting should be restricted and whether government, corporate owners or technology companies are the greater threat.
Support is broad but not absolute
About six in 10 Americans said the government should be able to require a news organization to remove a story that poses a national security risk. Fifty-one percent supported that power when a story contains false information.
Far fewer supported intervention because coverage favors one political side or criticizes the government. Fourteen percent said the government should be able to act against politically slanted reporting, while 10% supported action against criticism of the government.
Republicans were more likely than Democrats to support government removal in cases involving national security, 72% to 50%, and false information, 59% to 45%. Majorities in both parties rejected removal because a story was politically slanted or critical of the government.
Americans applied similar standards to social media companies. Sixty-seven percent said a platform should be able to remove a post that poses a national security risk, and 53% supported removal of false information, compared with 11% for political slant and 15% for criticism of the government.
Views of journalistic conduct vary
The survey found no journalistic practice that most Americans considered always acceptable. Recording police during a public arrest drew the broadest support, with 42% calling it always acceptable and another 22% saying it is usually acceptable.
Publishing classified details about military operations during an active conflict drew the strongest opposition. Forty-seven percent said it is never acceptable and 19% said it is rarely acceptable.
Views were more mixed on protecting an unnamed source, publishing details about a politician's private life and publishing confidential information obtained from government sources. Democrats were generally more accepting of those practices than Republicans.
Americans also distinguished between corrections and punishment after false reporting. Eighty-one percent said a news organization should issue a public correction in all, almost all or most cases, while 30% said the responsible journalist should usually be fired.
Government fines split the public. Thirty-two percent said the government should usually fine a news organization for publishing false information, 23% supported fines in some cases and 32% said they should occur in few, almost no or no cases.
Americans see pressure from multiple institutions
Large majorities said powerful institutions at least sometimes keep important news from reaching the public: 83% said this about the federal government, 79% about news organizations and 76% about social media companies. Fifty-nine percent said the government does so extremely often or often.
Republicans were more likely to say news organizations and individual journalists suppress important information, while Democrats were more likely to say the federal government does so. Republicans also expressed somewhat greater concern about social media companies withholding information.
More than half of Americans said corporate or political forces strongly shape the news. Fifty-four percent said corporations and financial interests influence news organizations a great deal, and 49% said the same about government and political interests.
Respondents said those pressures affect which stories receive coverage, the mix of political viewpoints and the accuracy of reporting. Fewer than one in 10 said news organizations face little or no influence from money or politics.
Partisan views shifted as control of the White House changed. The share of Republicans saying political interests heavily influence news organizations fell from 67% in 2024 to 54% in 2026. Among Democrats, the figure rose from 34% at the end of the Biden administration to 51% in 2025 before settling at 46% this year.
Concern about press freedom has risen modestly
Twenty-eight percent of Americans said the press is completely free to report the news, down from 33% in 2025. Another 48% described it as somewhat free, while 23% said it is not very free or not free at all.
The share highly concerned about possible restrictions on press freedom increased from 41% in 2024 to 46% in 2026. That was similar to concern about voting rights, peaceful assembly and freedom of speech.
Views now divide sharply by party. Eighteen percent of Democrats said the media is completely free, compared with 41% of Republicans. Sixty-four percent of Democrats expressed high concern about restrictions, compared with 29% of Republicans.
Forty-four percent of adults said the press has become less free during President Donald Trump's second administration, while 12% said it has become more free and 26% saw no change. Among those who said it is less free, 92% described that change as bad for the country.
Seventy-two percent of Democrats said press freedom has declined under Trump, compared with 15% of Republicans. One in five Republicans said the press has become more free.
The government-media relationship is widely viewed as poor
Seventy-one percent of adults described the relationship between the Trump administration and the news media as very or somewhat bad, up from 64% in 2025. Republicans and Democrats largely agreed that the relationship is bad but differed over responsibility.
Fifty-five percent said news organizations have too much political power and influence, 29% said they have about the right amount and 14% said they do not have enough. Republicans were more likely than Democrats to say the media has too much influence, 69% to 43%.
Most Americans said criticism can run in both directions, though they were more comfortable with scrutiny of government. Sixty-eight percent said it is at least somewhat acceptable for journalists to criticize politicians, while 56% said politicians may criticize journalists.
First Amendment knowledge has gaps
Pew asked eight factual questions about the First Amendment. Fifty-one percent correctly identified freedom of the press as one of the rights it guarantees, while 26% selected “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” language from the Declaration of Independence, and 9% selected the Second Amendment right to bear arms.
About seven in 10 correctly understood that the First Amendment protects information and opinions published by news organizations and expressed by ordinary people. Knowledge was weaker when private companies and online platforms were involved.
Thirty-seven percent correctly said the government cannot legally force social media companies to remove false information. Thirty-three percent knew the Constitution does not shield the press from interference by private companies.
Democrats and Republicans performed similarly overall, with 10% of Democrats and 8% of Republicans answering all eight questions correctly. Adults ages 18 to 29 were more likely than those 65 and older to identify press freedom as a First Amendment right, 57% to 44%.
Americans disagree on who belongs to the press
In focus groups, participants generally defined press freedom as the ability to report or publish information without government censorship, but many tied that freedom to accuracy, truthfulness and responsibility.
Some limited “the press” to trained or credentialed journalists affiliated with established organizations. Others included freelancers, independent reporters, online creators and ordinary people who gather and distribute information.
Participants often distinguished press freedom from free speech by saying journalists work to inform the public while individuals use speech to express personal beliefs. Others said digital publishing has blurred that boundary because anyone can document events and reach a large audience.
How the research was conducted
The Pew-Knight Initiative used two nationally representative American Trends Panel surveys. The first included 3,507 adults surveyed March 23-29 and had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 1.9 percentage points.
The second included 3,488 adults surveyed June 22-28 and had a margin of error of plus or minus 1.8 percentage points. SSRS conducted both surveys online and by live telephone in English and Spanish, and Pew weighted the results to represent U.S. adults.
The March survey oversampled Muslim, Jewish and non-Hispanic Asian adults, while the June survey oversampled non-Hispanic Asian adults. Those groups were weighted back to their shares of the population.
The study also included 10 online focus groups with 74 adults conducted May 20 through June 4. Pew cautioned that those discussions are not nationally representative and used them to illustrate how people explain their views, not to estimate public opinion.
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