When the Light of Democracy Goes Dark:  Arresting Journalists

Freedom of the press is the light of democracy. Without it, all hope for government of, by, and for the people is crushed.

Thomas Jefferson knew this. He once wrote that if he had to choose between a government without newspapers, or newspapers without government, he would not hesitate to choose the latter. That’s because he understood that the indispensable condition for the development of a free people in a free society is freedom of the press.  Although Jefferson was neither a delegate to the Constitutional Convention nor a member of the First Congress that wrote the Bill of Rights, his rationale for a free press was shared by those who enshrined it in the First Amendment. Freedom of the press, he believed, was the people’s right to know. At that juncture in June of 1789, the then novel and democratic theory that freedom of discourse is essential to the existence and security of free government became a pillar of republican thought that governs still.

That’s why the Trump Administration’s chilling arrest of two journalists—Don Lemon and Georgia Foot—has shaken the foundations of our freedom to the core. Lemon, a veteran journalist and former anchor of CNN, and Foot, a freelance reporter based in Minneapolis, have been charged with conspiring to violate the civil rights of parishioners at Cities Church, and blocking access to a house of worship. The charges are dubious, factually weak and a continuation of President Donald Trump’s very public vendetta against Lemon.

Lemon and Foot were, in fact, reporting the interruption of church services by a group of activists, protesting the activities of the pastor, who reportedly serves as the acting director of an ICE field office. The journalists made it clear, while on air, repeatedly, that they were reporting the demonstration, not participating in it. Nevertheless, officials arrested the reporters for practicing journalism.  In this arrest, the Trump Administration has criminalized journalism. That’s the way of Putin, Orban and other authoritarian leaders who have arrested reporters as a means of silencing an independent press that can hold governmental officials accountable through exposure of corruption and the abuse of power. The authoritarian playbook, scholars tell us, emphasizes the elimination of a free and independent press as one of the first, key steps to concentrating power in the hands of the executive. That is the authoritarian way, not the American way.

 Readers will recall President Trump’s dangerous and demeaning treatment of journalists since his first campaign for the presidency. Trump has called reporters “human scum” and “the enemy of people.” His verbal assaults on female reporters have been particularly nasty: “piggy,” “stupid” and “ugly.” At campaign stops, he has encouraged violence against reporters. News organizations filing stories that he doesn’t like are “fake news.” And such networks should “lose their licenses.” Trump has made no secret of his dislike for Lemon. Unlike previous presidents, including Ronald Reagan, who occasionally criticized stories written about them, none engaged in Trump’s hate mongering, for they recognized the central, indeed, integral importance of freedom of the press to American democracy.  

My affection for freedom of the press has been a life-long love affair. Newspaper coverage of the Pentagon Papers represented for me a coming-of-age experience, the revelation by a free press of abuse of power, corruption and deceit so profound that the indispensability of an independent press became part of my DNA. The intrepid journalism that broke the Watergate story and brought down a crooked president affirmed those early sensations and deepened the Jeffersonian values that define me still.   As a devoted admirer of a free and fiercely independent press that can inform, and thus serve, the citizenry, it is easy to discern in the arrest of Lemon and Foot an imminent disaster. The existence of a free press that can inform the people about the activities of their government, denizens of Russia under Putin and Hungary under Orban will tell you, is an enormous privilege, for it protects the public’s right to know, the foundation for self-government. It was with good reason that James Madison described freedom of the press as one of “choicest” of the “great rights of mankind” and sought to secure it in our Constitution. An injury to freedom of the press is an injury to us all. Without a free press, truth and facts become elusive, and the light of democracy goes dark.