A stark hypocrisy has emerged as prominent press freedom organizations, once vocal critics of President Donald Trump’s alleged media retaliation, are now leveling similar accusations against Democratic Maryland Governor Wes Moore. The Freedom of the Press Foundation, alongside six other leading journalism and civil liberties groups, penned a letter condemning the Moore administration’s decision to subject routine inquiries from Sinclair-affiliated news outlets and The Baltimore Sun to heightened legal review. This intensified scrutiny, explicitly linked in written responses to reporters to a defamation lawsuit filed against Moore by David Smith, executive chairman of Sinclair Broadcast Group and majority owner of The Baltimore Sun, mirrors the very tactics these groups decried when employed by the Trump White House. The press freedom advocates, including the Committee to Protect Journalists and PEN America, highlighted the jarring dissonance between Governor Moore’s past condemnations of Trump’s ‘unconstitutional attempts to ban disfavored media outlets’ and his administration’s current actions, arguing that journalists should not face differential treatment due to disputes involving their outlets’ ownership. Moore’s office has vehemently denied the allegations, asserting that agencies are still responding to inquiries and that legal review is ‘basic due diligence’ in response to Smith’s personal lawsuit, not a blackout, despite the coalition’s plea to cease ‘unlawful retaliation against news outlets you personally dislike’ and to treat Smith’s lawsuit as a personal matter.
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