The Guardian: "The arrest of Don Lemon is blatant censorship. And he is not the only one"

The arrest of Don Lemon is blatant censorship. And he is not the only one | Seth Stern

The arrest of Don Lemon
is blatant censorship

"Two federal courts reviewed the government’s evidence against journalist Don Lemon and declined to approve his arrest last week. But nevertheless, the attorney general, Pam Bondi, persisted, desperate to please her authoritarian boss no matter what the constitution and law say or what her ethical obligations as an attorney require.

Thursday’s arrests of Lemon and Georgia Fort, an independent journalist – like the recent raid on Hannah Natanson, the Washington Post reporter – demonstrate the administration’s lawless crusade against routine journalism. In normal times the expectation is that even when a journalist’s conduct might technically fit the legal elements of a crime – jaywalking to get footage of a protest, for example – prosecutors will exercise their discretion and judgment to not apply the law in a manner that chills the free press.

Those assumptions are inverted now. Even when journalists’ conduct is plainly non-criminal, prosecutors will work overtime to figure out some way to harass them, no matter how frivolous. Discouraging journalists from doing their job is not a side-effect they seek to avoid – it’s the whole point. There is no telling what nonsensical legal theories the administration may advance if it decides to make an example of a reporter it doesn’t like. The law and constitution are only marginally relevant – the only real rule is don’t piss off Trump."

Continue reading online with this 'share' link -> 

  https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jan/30/don-lemon-arrest-first-amendment-journalism?CMP=share_btn_url

First amendment under attack

Dan Kennedy writes: "New at Media Nation. We are in a very dark place as the Trump administration targets the First Amendment"

'My ethics and diversity class on Wednesday was devoted to a brief overview of First Amendment law. The class comprises nine graduate students and advanced undergrads, and they have shown throughout the semester that they are engaged and compassionate young people. I began with a video in the news. You’ve probably seen it. It shows black-clad, masked thugs, apparently with ICE, approaching a young woman on a sidewalk at Tufts University, hauling her off to a van and driving her away. Her name is Rumeysa Ozturk, and she’s a Ph.D. student and a Turkish citizen who’s in the U.S. on a student visa. It’s the latest shocking image in a series of shocking images we’ve been subjected to recently as the Trump administration — my friend Adam Gaffin of Universal Hub has simply taken to calling it “the regime” — tracks down international students who have been involved in some form of pro-Palestinian activism and targets them for deportation."

Continue reading the article -> https://dankennedy.net/2025/03/27/we-are-in-a-very-dark-place-as-the-trump-administration-targets-the-first-amendment/?

Shared from -> https://www.facebook.com/share/1AKo532oeS/