Press freedom index in the United States 2025| Statista

Press freedom index in the United States from 2013 to 2025

Characteristic	Index score
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Release date

June 2025

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Region

United States

Survey time period

2013 to 2025

Supplementary notes

According to the source, the Index ranks 180 countries and regions according to the level of freedom available to journalists. It is a snapshot of the media freedom situation based on an evaluation of pluralism, independence of the media, quality of legislative framework and safety of journalists in each country and region. It does not rank public policies even if governments obviously have a major impact on their country’s ranking. Nor is it an indicator of the quality of journalism in each country or region.
The countries surveyed were scored between 0 and 100, with 0 being the worst possible result and 100 the best.

Date of release is date of access.

Citation formats

In 2025, the United States had a press freedom index score of ***** points, down from ***** a year earlier. According to this global ranking, the greater the index score, the better the situation regarding press freedom in a given country. Despite a decrease in press freedom violations compared to in 2020, the index score in the United States was the worst on record in 2025 compared to previous years in the timeline.

Why is press freedom in the U.S on the decline?

Despite limited direct government control over how journalism is carried out in the United States, concentration of ownership in the country’s news landscape remains a significant issue, as does the gradual but consistent disappearance of local news outlets. The renewed influence of political figures — particularly President Donald Trump — continues to shape public discourse, with accusations of “fake news” still widespread in 2025. Distrust in the media remains high, and the waves of layoffs that began in 2023 continued through 2024 and into 2025, resulting in job losses for thousands of journalists and newsroom employees across the country.

Falling trust in news

Globally, more than half of journalists believe that the public has lost trust in the media over the last year. Unfortunately, this suspicion is not far from the truth. Only ** percent of U.S. respondents to a global survey considered journalists to be trustworthy. Further, almost ** percent of U.S. adults have no trust at all in the mass media to report the news accurately and fairly, close to double the share who felt the same way a decade earlier.