Barack Obama says the quiet part out loud — it’s time to “experiment” with “new forms of journalism” with “government regulatory constraints.”
“Part of what we’re going to have to do is to start experimenting with new forms of journalism and how we use social media in ways that… pic.twitter.com/Rp7TENsqmE
— Vigilant Fox 🦊 (@VigilantFox) October 29, 2025
Barack Obama just said the quiet part out loud—again. In a speech that sounded more like a trial balloon for state media than a defense of free press, the former president announced it’s time to “experiment” with “new forms of journalism” and hinted at “government regulatory constraints” to make it happen. Translation: journalism should evolve—as long as Washington holds the leash.
Let’s pause here. The man who once weaponized the IRS against conservative nonprofits and turned “spying on journalists” into a headline now wants to “reaffirm facts.” This is the same political class that labels opinions they dislike as “misinformation” and calls censorship “curating content.” If this is his idea of journalistic reform, then freedom of the press just got demoted to freedom of permission.
“New forms of journalism,” Obama says. We’ve heard that euphemism before. It usually means journalism that flatters power, worships bureaucracy, and silences any outlet not wearing an approved narrative badge. The last thing the republic needs is bureaucrats auditing reporters the way EPA inspectors check smokestacks.
This isn’t an idea pulled from the First Amendment; it’s straight from the playbook of regimes that fear dissent more than dishonesty. Obama may call it an “experiment.” The rest of us call it what it is: a government takeover of who gets to call something a fact. Imagine Washington “experimenting” with journalism the way it “experimented” with healthcare—more red tape, less freedom, and the only facts protected are the ones that protect politicians.
If journalism needs anything today, it’s courage, not constraints. It needs watchdogs, not regulators; free thinkers, not fact commissars. The entire point of the press is to challenge power, not be retrained by it.
When politicians start using words like “experiment” and “regulatory constraints” in the same sentence as “journalism,” every free citizen should reach for the Constitution—and their sense of humor. Because the idea that truth needs government supervision is not reform. It’s a punchline.