Welcome to America. Please be respectful, and silence your opinion. Now, settle down and enjoy the destruction of your right to speak freely.
Censorship has, as of late, become the largest fear of a journalist. Corporations and the government are currently fighting against journalism. And lately, there has been little decision between the two.
Within the 191 days of my senior year I have seen headline after headline threatening mine and everyone else’s right to a voice.
A right that I believed to be the foundation of our great nation.
Yet, now, the First Amendment seems to have lost its power.
The power to speak freely.
The power to stand up for ourselves.
The power to make a change.
The loss of this power stems from the government.
On Oct. 15 the government introduced a new press law that is restricting what journalists can cover in reference to the Pentagon. The new laws restrict where the press is allowed and requires them to be supervised in certain areas. Additionally, it forces reporters to agree that they will not gather information unless the department allows them to gather it.
When journalists were faced with the ultimatum of caving into the new policy, or being banned from the Pentagon’s premise, news agencies, left and right, joined together and marched out of the Pentagon refusing to be censored.
More recently, Jeff Bezos has made major changes to The Washington Post since acquiring it in Sep. of 2025. As of Feb. 2026, he has laid off over 300 reporters. These reporters’ jobs ranged from sports to international coverage. The loss of on ground reporters in foreign nations means that we have no credible first hand accounts of events happening in these countries. Creating restrictions on what we should know is happening around the world, barring the public from truth.
Not only are traditional news reporters and agencies in danger of losing sources, but night time TV is facing the same problems with censorship. Sep. of 2025 Jimmy Kimmel’s show was pulled off of live air after he made a controversial comment about the alleged killer of Charlie Kirk. He was pulled off air because the owner of the station his show airs on disliked his statement.
In these situations reporters and TV personalities have been told what they can and cannot report on. Something that I have always feared for my own writing.
I am only a high schooler, and because of that, I do not have press freedom rights. Missouri is one of many states that has zero laws in place to protect student journalism. What I write can be taken down.
Thankfully, our school administration chooses not to censor us. We are extremely lucky to have this privilege.
That being said, it is a privilege.
Unfortunately, I took it is one I took for granted; I have spent most of my high school journalism career scared to write about controversial and sensitive topics. I was scared of being censored but, more significantly, I was scared of being judged.
My fear no longer matters. I can not go on staying silent about what is important to me. I must speak up.
One voice can not change anything. If we want to prevent censorship, we have to band together. We have to speak up together. We can not live in fear that others will judge us. We can not live in fear that others will keep us quiet. We must fight for our beliefs, and, more importantly, we must fight for our voices.
