What a Court Order Involving Project Veritas and the New York Times Means for Press Freedom

A judge ruled that the New York Times improperly published documents belonging to Project Veritas, a right-rated watchdog group. What does the decision mean for press freedom?

Last week, New York judge Charles Wood upheld a previous ruling barring the Times from publishing documents written by a Veritas lawyer and ordered the paper to get rid of the documents. The judge decided that the documents were irregularly obtained and not a matter of public concern, and that making them public violated attorney-client privilege. The Times included them in its coverage of the FBI's sweeps of homes belonging to Veritas founder James O'Keefe and two other employees in November. In the report, the Times questioned Veritas's "tactics that test the boundaries of legality and are outside of mainstream reporting techniques." The FBI searches prompted press freedom concerns from the American Civil Liberties Union (Lean Left bias).

The Times's editorial board criticized Wood and argued that his decision endangers "one of the oldest and most enduring principles in our legal system: The government may not tell the press what it can and cannot publish." Right-rated voices tended to agree with Wood's evaluation and argued that the Times's claims of press freedom concerns were baseless. Some right-rated voices also accused the Times of hypocrisy for purportedly seeking to obstruct Project Veritas's First Amendment rights, highlighting how Veritas already sued the Times for defamation over a separate matter earlier this year, and arguing that press freedom applies to everyone whether or not they work for a "real" news source.