NEW JERSEY PRESS ASSOCIATION STANDS BY NEW BRUNSWICK TODAY IN ITS QUEST TO OVERTURN UNCONSTITUTIONAL PRIOR RESTRAINTS PLACED ON IT FOR ITS TRUTHFUL REPORTING

The New Jersey Press Association (NJPA) stands firmly with its member, New Brunswick Today, in opposing the extraordinary and unconstitutional prior restraints that have recently been imposed upon it.

In late May 2026, New Brunswick Today published a video showing a security incident at New Brunswick High School, an event that the community had a right to know more about. Holding powerful institutions accountable is exactly what local journalism is supposed to do, and that work depends on the freedom to report without interference from the very institutions being covered.

Shortly after the video was published, a court ordered New Brunswick Today to take it down, enjoined it from posting any other security videos and even barred the outlet from writing about what the video showed. That kind of order, where a government agency uses the courts to stop a news organization from publishing news, is one of the most serious threats to the free press that exists. It lets those in power shape the story on their own terms, without scrutiny or challenge from reporters on the ground.

A community's ability to hold its institutions accountable depends on having a local press that is free to do its job. When a school board can go to court and – without any basis in law - silence a news outlet from covering a security incident at a public school, something has gone seriously wrong. The fact that the court rushed to impose prior restraints without even considering the First Amendment and nearly a century of U.S. Supreme Court precedent against prior restraints causes us even greater concern.

NJPA urges the immediate lifting of these restraints. A free and independent press is essential to democratic accountability, and New Jersey’s courts must remain vigilant in protecting that principle. The First Amendment requires nothing less.