Harassment, Violence, Political Retaliation Threaten Free Press

Bruce S. Putterman, Publisher of the Pulitzer Prize-winning CT Mirror, said threats against journalists are not new, but the vitriol toward the press that has been fermenting in other parts of the country for years had not taken root here in Connecticut…until 2025.

In his February 2026 newsletter, Putterman wrote: “In June (2025)… CT Mirror’s John Dankosky interviewed Connecticut U.S. Representative Rosa DeLauro in-person, before a live audience in New Haven.” Putterman said. Over the course of the interview a heckler in the crowd, wearing a backpack, grew increasingly agitated.

“Eventually, he stood up to leave, but then pivoted, approached the stage behind John, and threw something at Rep. DeLauro. A member of the Congresswoman’s staff rushed the stage to grab and escort the heckler out of the building,” Putterman wrote. “The object that the heckler threw was just a crumpled-up dollar bill, but in the time it took that dollar bill to float to the ground, many of us, and certainly John and I, imagined all kinds of frightening, what-could-have-been possibilities. We would need to hire security for our in-person events, especially events with prominent elected officials.”

“Later in the summer, when our Bridgeport Community Engagement reporter Reggie David announced that he was hosting a listening session he received a social media post threatening to beat him up at the event,” Putterman said. “I stood corrected. Our security needs were greater than just events with prominent elected officials.”

Putterman also stated that an online harassment campaign had been directed at their Housing and Children’s Issues reporter, Ginny Monk, for months. 

Further, in January 2026, Journalist Shahrzad Rasekh attended a vigil that was held in Hartford for Renee Good, the woman killed by ICE in Minneapolis. Rasekh had been to Ukraine twice to tell stories of Connecticut links to the conflict there. Before her first trip, she received extensive training on operating in a conflict zone. She also received a safety kit. She had that safety kit with her at the Hartford vigil.

“It’s good that she did because she was exposed to pepper spray as she was photographing the encounter between several protesters and people they suspected of being federal or ICE officers,” Putterman wrote.

Threats of political retaliation over media coverage of politicians are another thing that more media outlets are having to traverse.

When President Donald Trump announced he was renaming the Gulf of Mexico to Gulf of America, The Associated Press (AP) said it would not update its stylebook to reflect the change.

That decision led the White House to ban AP from the White House press pool.

AP sued the White House over the decision and won, but Trump has not backed down from his repeated attacks on the wire service, which he has characterized as partisan. 

“The court ruled in AP’s favor — in a strong opinion in support of free speech — and the government is appealing,” AP spokesman Patrick Maks said in an Oct.6, 2025 article. “As we’ve said throughout, the press and the public have a fundamental right to speak freely without government retaliation.”

Not all media have expressed the same intent. Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos’ decision to cancel the editorial board's tradition of endorsing presidential candidates was discussed on May 6, 2025 by MS NOW host Jen Psaki. She interviewed longtime Washington Post Executive Editor Marty Baron, who resigned in protest over mass layoffs at the paper, as well as Bezos’ editorial decisions.

In the eight years Baron led the newsroom, the paper won 18 Pulitzer Prizes and saw its readership nearly doubled. Baron described the evolution of Bezos’ leadership at The Post.

“Well, I thought that when I joined The Post in 2013, it was a great news organization then. It had faced many challenges, but we grew. We grew under the ownership of Jeff Bezos,” Baron said. “He spoke on behalf of the mission of The Post. He spoke on behalf of the mission of the press in this country.”

Baron said Bezos changed after Trump came into office again.

“He (the President) had promised vengeance against his perceived political enemies. Jeff Bezos was seen as a political enemy by Donald Trump, for one reason and one reason only, and that was the coverage of The Washington Post,” Baron said. “We've been very aggressive in our coverage of Donald Trump, and I think for good reason, because he was abusing his power as President. And so, we sought out to document that and we did document that. And that's what a good news organization ought to do. That's why we have the free press in this country.”

Baron said Bezos feared reprisal against Amazon, which is the source of his wealth.

“And he feared that… the object of his passion, which is Blue Origin, the private space company, would not get the government contracts that it needed,” Baron said.

“The problem is that by doing those things (layoffs/editorial decisions), he's driven away loyal subscribers to The Washington Post, because this is not independent at all. He's dependent on Donald Trump,” Baron said.

250,000 readers canceled their subscriptions, Psaki reported.

Baron said he is concerned about how both print and broadcast media will manage covering Trump going forward with the potential for retaliation from this President.

“I am concerned about our ability to endure this administration,” he said. “We're only one (now two) years into it. We have (two) more years to go.”

Baron cited the example of a raid on the home of Hannah Natanson, a Washington Post reporter. 

“They seized all of her electronic devices, and they've extracted information from those devices,” he said. “And the most recent behavior of the administration has suggested that they will put no limits on their aggressions against an independent press.”