Press Freedom in Montana

Montana scores 100 of 100 on the Institute for Free Speech's anti-SLAPP rubric, against a median of 85 across the 51 jurisdictions.

The overall score is two parts coverage to one part protections, as IFS weights them.

What Montana actually gives a defendant

The five protections IFS scores. A statute can cover every kind of speech and still leave a defendant paying their own lawyer for two years.

• Case pauses while the motion is heardFull marks: 20 / 20
• Plaintiff must show the case has meritFull marks: 12 / 12
• Denial can be appealed at onceFull marks: 25 / 25
• Winning defendant recovers legal costsFull marks: 40 / 40
• Courts told to read the law broadlyFull marks: 3 / 3

Montana scores on all five, which only a minority of jurisdictions do.

Incidents logged in Montana

The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker has logged 3 press-freedom incidents in Montana since 2014, of which 0 are since January 1, 2021.

• Assault1

  Physical attacks on journalists covering a story

• Chilling Statement1

  Officials threatening the press publicly

• Other Incident1

  Logged, but outside the named categories

This is a count, not a score. It tracks where the protests and the newsrooms are as much as where the law is hostile, so a big state will out-count a small one whatever its statute says. An incident can carry more than one category, so the categories sum to more than the total. Nothing here is added to the anti-SLAPP score.

Where this comes from

The grade and the five component scores are the Institute for Free Speech's 2025 Report Card entry for Montana. Incident counts are the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, used under CC BY 4.0. Both retrieved September 19, 2026. The score is IFS's own judgement and is not part of the FreedomRankings score.

Anti-SLAPP law is one part of press freedom, not all of it — shield laws, public records law and how Montana courts actually rule are not scored here. None of this is legal advice; talk to a lawyer about an actual dispute.