Especially in times of crisis, Americans actually sympathize with restrictions of speech. This was evident in the aftermath of September 11, when half the country favored “press restraint” on covering the Abu Ghraib torture. Or in the fact that journalists are often arrested or harassed by police at protests, such as Occupy Wall Street and #NoDAPL, or that Trump’s White House restricts access to oppositional reporters. This is why the United States only ranked #43 on the World Press Freedom rankings in 2017.
