BY: Cheryl Smith
Years ago, journalists visiting from Africa stopped by the offices of The Dallas Weekly in Sunny South Dallas, and we had a very interesting time together. Part of our discussion dealt with press freedom and the assault on journalists, personally and professionally.
I was shocked to hear about some of the attacks by the government, as continuous attempts were made to silence journalists.
The journalists said their publisher would either let them go home early on Fridays or just tell them to take the day off, giving them a long weekend.
Some would say, “What a nice perk.”
Actually, the employer was saving the employees from a long and torturous weekend because, at some time on every Friday, the law would enter the newsrooms and arrest all the journalists, ensuring that they would spend the entire weekend behind bars.
The journalists would be charged with some obscure, insignificant infraction, just to detain and discourage them from writing about the government.
Imprisonment was a useful tool for the government. Just ask those living in Cameroon who saw Pius Njawe as a hero, speaking of him in the same way they did Nelson Mandela.
Njawe traveled from Cameroon to spend a semester as a guest lecturer at the University of North Texas. Pius was the publisher of Le Messager, a newspaper in Cameroon.
Over the course of his career as a journalist, Njawe was arrested more than 120 times for speaking out and writing about a corrupt government.
We became friends and when Le Messager turned 30, I traveled to Cameroon to share my thoughts on the similarities between the fight for press freedom in Africa and the struggle of the Black Press in America.
Fast forward to 2026, two journalists, Don Lemon, and Georgia Fort, along with two activists, Trahern Crews, who was a co-founder of Black Lives Matter Minnesota, and Jamael Lundy, who was a lobbyist and candidate for a Minnesota Senate seat, were arrested “in connection with the coordinated attack on Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota.”
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi also asked for the two journalists to be held without bail, but they were released the next day, pending their trial.
Conspiracy and interfering with a church service were the reasons given for the federal charges stemming from the Anti-ICE protests that Lemon and Fort were covering.
Documenting what is happening, the two explained, was their job. They weren’t participants in the protests.
The arrests were “evidence that the country is in a full-blown constitutional crisis,” said U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX).
Crockett blasted the Trump administration for intimidating journalists as she called for the release of the journalists.
more than 100 times for speaking
out against a corrupt Cameroonian
government
“I will not allow Donald Trump and Pam Bondi to continue weaponizing the Justice Department to silence journalists, intimidate whistleblowers, or terrorize communities into submission. Don Lemon and Georgia Fort must be released immediately,” she continued.
Other critics have referred to the arrests as kidnappings, censorship, an attack on the First Amendment, and a waste of taxpayer dollars.
Abbe Lowell, Lemon’s attorney, released a statement denouncing the arrest and saying the charges would be fought “vigorously and thoroughly in court.”
The National Association of Black Journalists, along with numerous other media organizations, and even Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, addressed the treatment of the journalists.
In a statement from the 113-year-old public service organization, the actions were a threat to press freedom:
“The arrest of journalists engaged in lawful reporting raises serious concerns about the erosion of First Amendment protections and the selective use of authority. History shows that when press freedoms are weakened, marginalized communities are often the first to be silenced.
“We are especially concerned by the arrest of journalists of color, which raises troubling questions about disparate treatment and the heightened risks faced by Black and other marginalized reporters when exercising their constitutional rights.”
I am disturbed by the continued assaults by this administration. The only thing more disturbing than the countless acts has to be the deafening silence of those who know better and should be speaking out.
The arrests and attacks are merely weapons of mass distraction that let’s us know that some other crap is going on that we need to be aware of.
We must let Georgia and Don know that they are not alone. We must let journalists around the world know they are not alone.
We must raise our voices, and we must do as Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said, and start a defense fund to fight injustices.
