The FBI’s search of a Washington Post reporter’s home is rare — and part of a growing pattern

When news spread Wednesday that FBI agents had searched a Washington Post reporter’s home, many journalists were shocked. Coverage of the incident was quick to highlight the extreme nature of the action.

In many ways, the search — which ended in agents confiscating a phone, two computers and a Garmin watch from Post reporter Hannah Natanson — was an unusually brazen threat to press freedom, even for an administration that has repeatedly attacked the press. But in other ways, the search (and the subsequent subpoena the Post received) was an escalation of an already troubling trend that stretches back several presidential administrations, according to press freedom experts.