Those aren't great examples -- it's pretty rare to get taken down for simply reporting on IP issues. You can get taken down for distributing someone else's copyrighted content, but I have yet to see the government go after someone for simple journalism. The closest we've gotten to that was the Dajaz1 domain name seizure, but that was because they served up actual copyrighted songs (though arguably with authorization), not because of their reporting.
That said, there's been plenty of DMCA abuse and unwarranted legal nastygrams against journalists, but as far as I'm aware, in every case where people actually took the case to court rather than just giving in, they've won. Our IP system provides for plenty of opportunities for "extortion by lawyer", but it's a different problem than "press freedom" IMHO.
The "hot news" doctrine is mostly dead these days.[1] And at worst, it delays wide-spread dissemination of news for a day, rather than suppress it outright.
From the linked article: "The United States rejected this doctrine in the 1991 United States Supreme Court case Feist Publications v. Rural Telephone Service"
http://www.ice.gov/news/releases/1312/131202washingtondc.htm
http://www.dmca.com/takedowns.aspx