Patriot Press Freedom Tracker

What Data Is Available

The knowledgebase/press-freedom/ directory contains 2,569 structured incidents from the US Press Freedom Tracker (pressfreedomtracker.us), organized into ~104 KB documents by category and time period. Each incident includes:

• Title and date
• Location (city, state)
• Category (Assault, Arrest, Chilling Statement, etc.)
• Targeted journalists (name and outlet)
• Targeted institutions (news organizations)
• Public figures involved (politicians, officials)
• Teaser (one-sentence summary)
• Source URL (link to full Press Freedom Tracker article)

Category → KB Slug Map

Category	KB slug prefix	Typical year range
Assault	pft-assaults-{year}	2014–2026, split by month for large years
Arrest/Criminal Charge	pft-arrests-{year}	2014–2026
Subpoena/Legal Order	pft-subpoenas-{year}	2017–2026
Equipment Damage	pft-equipment-damage-{year}	2014–2026
Other Incident	pft-other-incidents-{year}	2017–2026
Equipment Search or Seizure	pft-equipment-seizure-{year}	2014–2026
Chilling Statement	pft-chilling-statements-{year}	2017–2026
Denial of Access	pft-denial-of-access-{year}	2017–2026
Border Stop	pft-border-stops	All years in one doc
Prior Restraint	pft-prior-restraint	All years in one doc
Leak Case	pft-leak-cases	All years in one doc

The index document is pft-index.

How to Query

By Category

To find all chilling statements by government officials, look up pft-chilling-statements-{year} documents. For Trump second-term activity, focus on pft-chilling-statements-2025 and pft-chilling-statements-2026.

By Person

Search the knowledge base for a specific person’s name across press-freedom documents. The Public figures involved and Targeted journalists fields will match. Example: searching for “Brendan Carr” will surface his FCC actions in the Chilling Statement category.

By Institution

Search for organization names across press-freedom documents. The Targeted institutions field includes specific outlets like “ABC News”, “CNN”, “National Public Radio”, etc.

By Time Period

Year-specific documents allow time-scoped queries. The date range is in each document’s header metadata.

Cross-Reference with Accountability Profiles

Many incidents name politicians or public figures who also have accountability profiles in the knowledge base. When an agent encounters a press freedom incident involving a named figure:

1. Check if an accountability profile exists for that person (e.g., brendan-carr-profile.md)
2. Reference the specific Press Freedom Tracker incident in the profile context
3. Note the incident category and date for severity assessment

Updating the Data

The data is synced on demand using:

python scripts/sync_press_freedom.py --update          # pull changes since last sync
python scripts/sync_press_freedom.py --update --since 2025-01-01  # from a specific date

After syncing, publish to WordPress:

python scripts/pu_publish.py --publish --only "pft-*"

Composing Skills

This skill composes with:

• first-amendment-legal-expert — legal analysis of press freedom incidents
• public-corruption-ombudsman — tracking officials who target the press
• patriot-news-orchestrator — monitoring news about press freedom threats
• media-verification-specialist — verifying claims about media suppression
• democratic-health-monitoring — press freedom as a democratic health indicator