2/1/26

ARRESTED REPORTERS:
The One Story That Cannot Be Allowed To Die

DON LEMON Photo Credit: Lemon's website

GEORGIA FORT Photo credit: Fort's website

YOU ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO LIKE REPORTERS, or the news media in general.
     But you should  treasure what they are supposed to do, which is to bring all of us vital information, especially about the workings of democracy.
     Which is why the Trump administration’s arrest this week of two reporters who were on the scene of one of the many stories out of embattled Minnesota is so alarming and dangerous.
     And why I found this weekend’s absence of updated stories from the major news sites upsetting, as if the arrests were just another of the scores of Trump-era events that disappear after a day or two and are virtually forgotten.
     The arrests – and similar attacks on freedom of the press – are the one story that news organizations should keep on the front burner, both for their own survival as well as that of democratic government.
     This is no time for “balance,” “fairness,” and “even-handedness” by the media. We’re talking a life-and-death fight that needs to be told on every news platform with urgency and ferocity.

I’M TALKING ABOUT THE ARRESTS last week of two independent journalists, Don Lemon, a one-time anchor for CNN, and Georgia Fort, both of whom operate news sites, Fort’s based in Minnesota.
     They were doing their jobs on Jan. 18, reporting how demonstrators disrupted services at Cities Church in St. Paul, where one of the pastors is an official of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
     A federal indictment last week accuses the reporters of interfering with religious freedom and depriving church congregants of their religious rights.
     Think of the potential to end the news media as we know it if the federal charges are upheld: journalist could be jailed – muzzled – just for reporting controversial stories.
     Indeed, the arrests got appropriate media attention when the arrests were made on Friday  – Lemon was detained in Los Angeles, where he was covering Grammy events.
     Later, the New  York Times said that “thousands” of protesters marched from City Hall to the courthouse and detention complex, including actress Jane Fonda and LA Mayor Karen Bass.
      “I have spent my entire career covering the news,” Lemon said after a court appearance. “I will not stop now. There is no more important time than right now, this ever moment, for a free and independent media that shines a light on the truth and holds those in power accountable.”
     The following day, Saturday, and today, Sunday, I searched the online sites for the Times and the Washington Post for fresh stories and analyses.
     But in both cases, I couldn’t find word one as I made my way down the stack of headlines.
     There were stories about the federal reserve, another winter storm, the “Melania” documentary. I had to use the search functions to find the latest, which were published later Friday, only to fade the next day.
     This was business as usual: stories break, are covered in some depth, and then disappear as the news cycle moves on. It  makes sense on ordinary news (if there is such a thing during Trump times). But when it comes to press freedom, it’s a disastrous approach.
     Indeed, the media critic Dan Froomkin advised the opposite approach.
     “Every major news organization in the United States should be calling this out for what it is, and demanding that the charges be dropped. And they should use every possible platform to do so -including their news stories,” Froomkin wrote.
     “The coverage should state clearly from the get-go that this represents the most dramatic violation of freedom of the press of the Trump era. And it should remind the public why freedom of the press matters,” he said.

JOURNALISTS CAN BE ANNOYING.
     Lemon was canned at CNN in 2021 for making sexist comments about women and aging.
     The conservative commentator Gary Abernathy told the PBS News Hour that “Don Lemon quit being a journalist a long time ago. He became an activist.”
     But Abernathy doesn't get to decide who is and who isn't a reporter. In this case, Lemon and Fort were carrying out their duties as reporters covering the church demonstration, and as I said, you don’t have to like every reporter or pundit to honor their vital role.
     My hope is that people who are running the major outlets will keep this story alive and kicking.
     There are endless ways to do this, beginning with the decision to make sure the issue remains front and center:

• Profiles of the two reporters.
• Backgrounders on the questionable legal basis of the indictments.
• Reports on how the two unaffiliated journalists will pay their legal costs.
• Historical examples of how an aggressive press has made a difference.
• Roundups of the many ways that the Trump administration has tried to limit journalists’ access – such as excluding some reporters from the Pentagon and White House.
• Timelines of how the cases against Lemon and Fort developed. Initially, judges had declined to approve their arrests.
• Detailed coverage of the next steps in the legal process.

     You get the picture.
     There are pitfalls. Consumers of news tire of reading and hearing about the same subject. And as much as the media wishes otherwise, news outlets cannot single-handedly determine the outcome of an issue, just through exhaustive coverage.
     But in this case, the story is too important to treat routinely as just another ho-hum, now you see it, now you don’t issue. If the people who run the media don’t see this story as urgent to their own survival, who will?
     Judging by this weekend’s performance, the media is off to a terrible start and needs to change course. Arresting Lemon and Fort was and is an outrage, period.
     If the government is allowed to lock up reporters, democracy loses its eyes, ears and voice.

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