Black Journalists And Black Freedom Go Hand-In-Hand
The arrests of Black journalists Georgia Fort and Don Lemon offer a chilling reminder that freedom isn’t free. According to the Star Tribune, Fort was released late Friday afternoon after a federal judge rejected the government’s claims that she committed a crime warranting her continued detention.
“As a journalist who has worked in media for more than 17 years, I leave this federal courthouse today with one question: Do we have a constitution?” Fort said upon her release. “I should be protected under the First Amendment, just like all of the journalists who I’ve been advocating for, too. I’ve been advocating for mainstream media journalists who have been brutalized for months.”
As the National Association of Black Journalists correctly explained in its statement on Friday, Jan. 30: “The First Amendment is not optional, and journalism is NOT a crime.”
While alarming, it’s no surprise that the Trump administration targeted Black journalists for arrest as a part of its sweeping effort to crush dissent. Fort and Lemon’s real crimes have nothing to do with the alleged charges against them and everything to do with this government’s obsession with white supremacist authority and control.
Protecting our rights and freedoms has always required determination, diligence, and dedication—not just to our own personal safety, but also ensuring equal access across the board. It becomes increasingly important at a time when federal officials are using every government resource and their access to private entities and media platforms to suppress real information about what is happening in our communities and behind closed doors.
Despite the Constitution’s plain language about the right to free speech and the freedom of the press, these rights have always required advocacy and determination to ensure their enforcement. These arrests follow a pattern and practice that models a long-standing approach to silencing Black dissent and self-determination.
“This administration is determined to deny not only the constitutional rights of its citizens and residents, but the human rights of all who oppose its racist agenda,” said Ashantia Oso, Executive Director of Media 2070, in a statement posted on Bluesky.
Oso continued to highlight the vulnerability of Black journalists and creators who “are leveraging real resources for this work, and it’s the most recent in a long and frightening history of Black reporters facing violence for attempting to tell stories that challenge the status quo of race and power.”
Black journalists and the Black press have played a historic role in elevating and amplifying the terrors and violence of this country on our communities—a role that both Fort and Lemon have taken to heart.
“As journalists, our first obligation is to bear witness and to inform,” NABJ President Errin Haines said in a statement. “When those obligations are met with detention or prosecution instead of protection, we must ask: what message are we sending about who gets to report and who gets silenced? A free press, not a penalized one, is essential to democracy; especially when coverage intersects with contentious public issues.”
Having spoken with Fort on occasion, this writer has witnessed her deep commitment to building not just her independent platform but an ecosystem that helps communities be heard.
Fort shared her reaction in a livestream just moments before her arrest. She explained that she had spoken with her attorney and would comply with the arrest warrant, but maintained her right to a free press.
Some might wonder why anyone would comply with an arguably unlawful order. But we live in a country where simply existing or doing any number of reasonable activities has given law enforcement grounds to end our lives. Sometimes, complying in the moment is how we make it to the next hour, day, or week to keep fighting.
As previously reported by the Deadline: Legal Blog, thirsty DOJ officials were pressed to charge Lemon and others for their coverage and presence at a protest at a St. Paul-area church earlier this month. Officials pressed ahead with the charges even after a magistrate rejected the government’s claims, following Trump’s pattern of targeting political adversaries and those who shed light on his scams and other misconduct.
The government’s attempts to bypass basic court procedures and legal standards even offended a federal judge who clerked for the late conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, as evidenced by a letter submitted to his counterpart on the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
“The government has also argued that I must accept this as true because they said it, and they are the government,” he wrote.
The concern isn’t national security but rather absolute domination and control, intended to subdue opposition to unjust actions in communities across the country. It is also part of the current DOJ’s strategy to ignore existing legal processes and pursue actions that can later be used as part of its propaganda machine.
To be clear, the federal government is bypassing state and local judges and authorities to harass, silence, and where possible, discredit, those who will stand firm in the face of tyranny. And it’s attempting to weaponize the same civil rights laws passed to protect Black and other impacted communities from white supremacist and other far-right violence against us.
Gabe Rottman, vice president of policy for the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, explained in a statement that the arrests are out of step with the “limited number of cases” where journalists have been charged for covering actions on private property.
“To our knowledge, it’s unprecedented for the Justice Department to deploy the federal laws it has previously cited in this case against journalistic activity,” Rottman said. “Historically, the limited number of cases that have been brought against a journalist documenting a protest on private property have been handled as trespass cases at the state level. Those charges are almost always dropped, or if the cases go to trial, the journalists typically prevail.”
The arrests of Fort and Lemon follow federal officials deporting a metro-Atlanta journalist, Mario Guevara, arguably in retaliation for his coverage of immigration actions last year. He spent over four months in detention before being forcibly removed from the country. He has continued to report and share his experience.
Earlier this month, federal officials raided a Washington Post journalist’s home and seized her phone and computer related to her reporting. A judge ordered the return of her property last week.
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Don Lemon’s Arrest Is A Warning Shot At Black, Independent Journalists