The current German federal government is preparing to deal press freedom another blow, this time through a planned amendment to the Freedom of Information Act (IFG). Since 2006, the law has given citizens, journalists, NGOs and academics the right to request official federal information, including files, expert reports, contracts, memos and correspondence held by ministries and federal authorities. It has served as the basis for numerous investigations and has repeatedly exposed scandals. The government now wants to curtail it, citing the reduction of bureaucracy as its rationale.
The amended law would require anyone requesting information to first prove that it cannot be obtained through any other channel. This change would hit journalists particularly hard, since the IFG underpins investigations into government expert reports, ministry contacts, consulting contracts, lobbying influence, cost overruns, internal warnings, communication failures, funding decisions and official misconduct. Much of this material has only come to light after lengthy litigation, since authorities have often withheld it outright or handed it over with key passages redacted.
Reform in Name Only
Take the case of former Health Minister Jens Spahn's mask deals during the coronavirus period, which squandered billions of euros and came to light only because of the Freedom of Information Act. This right is a pillar of transparency in the country and, as such, essential to the work of the free press.
The same holds for the minutes of the government's crisis unit, which had decided on the suspension of civil rights and advised on school closures and public health measures. These, too, became known to the public only after legal action.
Only a few weeks ago, legal action forced the release of documents showing that the Foreign Office, led at the time by Frank-Walter Steinmeier, now Federal President, had channeled millions of euros to an organization with proven ties to the extremist Muslim Brotherhood. Without the Freedom of Information Act, none of this would ever have come to light.
Such rights matter most to smaller newsrooms, freelance journalists and investigative reporters, who generally lack privileged access to background information. Rather than reducing bureaucracy, the amendment would considerably expand it. It amounts to genuinely Orwellian legislation, allowing authorities to reject any request for information immediately and with minimal administrative effort.
Any objections from citizens or journalists would only be addressed later, through protracted administrative and legal proceedings. Meanwhile, those requesting information would be obligated to provide extensive justification for why the documents are needed.
Far from cutting bureaucracy, the amendment would multiply it.
This does more than burden the work of the independent press. Under the amended law, every press inquiry filed under the Freedom of Information Act would require journalists to provide a complete list of reasons why the authority is obligated to supply that particular information to that particular requester, a far cry from transparency, citizen-friendliness or genuine bureaucratic relief.
A Widening Web of Control
The IFG reform cannot be viewed in isolation. It belongs to a wider set of government measures. "Public value" criteria are meant to favor media approved by state-affiliated oversight bodies, namely the state media authorities. Just recently, the state media authority of North Rhine-Westphalia wrongly tried to force a journalist to censor, or at least "contextualize", a YouTube video, an overreach with no legal basis that nonetheless fits the pattern. Former Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser went further still, using association law during her time in office to ban a magazine and shut down its editorial offices.
The outlet ultimately prevailed in court and is now able to operate again, yet the state had already demonstrated its willingness to crack down. Other steps have included expanded telecommunications surveillance, digital anti-violence laws, platform regulation and new media oversight bodies. Taxpayer-funded NGOs are likewise attempting to take over functions of the free press, among them the so-called research collective Correctiv, which produces its own reports while also acting as a state-commissioned "fact checker". The overall direction is toward a press landscape that is state-funded and, as a result, favorably disposed toward the state.
The State as Gatekeeper
Germany's federal states have spent 2024 and 2025 negotiating a new State Treaty on Digital Media, under which the state media authorities would be reformed. These state-affiliated bodies would then have the power to classify content as beneficial, reliable, manipulative or dangerous to the democratic public. If adopted, the reform would hand the state the authority to determine which information or opinions qualify as harmful, and therefore impermissible.
Since news today circulates largely through social media, state-appointed "trusted flaggers" represent a further constraint on press freedom. When platforms face internal disputes over content, these flaggers tend to have the final say, and anything deemed unsuitable is removed. This is not censorship in the strict sense, but a form of control over what remains visible online. Taken together, these examples show how the planned IFG reform fits into a wider pattern of federal and state measures.
The Softer Face of Censorship
None of the cases mentioned involves any attempt at, or exercise of, censorship as prohibited under Germany's Basic Law. Yet each measure is capable of slowing, hindering or entirely preventing the disclosure of facts.
Still other measures work by making already-published news or opinions effectively disappear, through executive action, restrictions on digital distribution, or "contextualizing" and reframing content to suit the government or an NGO. Political smear campaigns against individual independent outlets belong to the same pattern, as does the domestic intelligence agency's recent claim that readers of certain internet portals must be right-wing or even right-wing extremist, simply because they consume that media.
No single measure is the point here, though each could certainly be criticized in isolation. What matters is the overall picture, which shows the state steadily restraining, hemming in and complicating the work of individual journalists and the free press as a whole.
One way to picture this is to compare the free, independent press, its input, its investigative work, its output and its dissemination of information and critical analysis, to a car and its performance.
Following that analogy, the combined effect of these measures resembles low-grade fuel, poor road conditions and a handbrake that never releases. State-affiliated media, meanwhile, run on premium fuel, enjoy their own passing lane and may hit the turbocharger whenever they choose.