WASHINGTON – Independent journalist Georgia Fort filmed federal agents outside of her home on Jan. 30. They were coming to arrest her in connection with reporting and filming at an anti-ICE protest in Minneapolis, Minn., almost two weeks prior.
“I don’t feel like I have my First Amendment right as a member of the press,” said Fort in video footage shared with CNN.
She added that “it’s hard to understand how we have a Constitution, constitutional rights, when you can just be arrested for being a member of the press.”
Don Lemon, a former CNN host, was arrested in late January in connection with the same protest. Junn Bollman, an independent photographer, was also arrested in Los Angeles on Feb. 27, according to reporting by the Committee to Protect Journalists.
Arresting journalists escalated the Trump administration’s consistent attacks against the media. Experts warn that these attacks could have a chilling effect on the press, which the public relies on for information and to hold government officials accountable.
“You need the press to find out about your neighbors being abducted if it doesn't happen in front of your eyes, and it usually won't happen in front of your eyes,” said Seth Stern, chief of advocacy at the Freedom of the Press Foundation. “Whatever it is that you are most concerned about and that you want to resist during this administration, you know you're going to need a free press to give you the information you need in order to advocate effectively for your priorities.”
THE PRESIDENT AND THE PRESS
The executive branch needs some amount of secrecy, which means the president and the press have “always been at odds with each other,” said Matt Carlson, professor at the University of Minnesota’s Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication.
“Journalists' job is to bring all these things into the public eye,” said Carlson. “Even presidents who seem supportive of the press are always unhappy when what they're doing is reported into everyone's living rooms or everyone's computers or everyone's newspapers.”
Historian Harold Hozner said Trump is not the first president to criticize the media.
“The first president who talked about fake news was the first president, George Washington,” Hozner said.
Other presidents, including Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, attempted to limit the freedom of the press. However, Hozner noted that previous administrations implemented restrictions during genuine national emergencies.
“The difference is that Donald Trump has done this without a national emergency,” Hozner said. “There has been no declaration of war. There has been no insurrection, except when Donald Trump was leaving the presidency in 2021.”
Since Trump became the Republican presidential nominee in 2016, he has regularly attacked journalists, Carlson said.
According to Reporters without Borders, in the two months before the 2024 presidential election, Trump verbally attacked the media over 100 times, not including social media posts. Trump has also insulted female reporters using sexist language and demeaning comments, while others in his administration have publicly argued with journalists.
Carlson said Trump has challenged the legitimacy of journalism as a whole.
“It tears down confidence in the press as an honest broker in seeking the truth. And I think that's the goal,” said Hozner. “I think it's a very purposeful, long-range way to tear down the reputation of the press.”
ESCALATION AFTER ESCALATION
In addition to verbal attacks on the media, the Trump administration has tried to restrict reporting.
In the first few months of the second administration, the White House took over deciding who would make up the press pool, a job previously handled by the White House Correspondents Association.
The Trump administration tried to ban the Associated Press from White House coverage after the publication refused to change its style guide on the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. The Pentagon also restricted access to only allow journalists who agreed to various reporting restrictions. On Wednesday, they also banned press photographers from briefings on the Iran War.
The administration’s actions against the press have escalated in recent months, with the arrests of three journalists in connection with their reporting at a protest in Minnesota and the raid of a Washington Post journalist’s home.
Previous presidents, including former President Barack Obama, have used tools like the Espionage Act to go after sources that leaked confidential information, said Gabe Rottman, the vice president of policy at the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.
Arresting journalists for their work at protests is an attempt to “criminalize very routine newsgathering practices,” Stern said.
Fort, Pullman, and Lemon were each charged with two crimes. The first was conspiring to deprive people of their civil rights, and the second was violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, which prohibits interfering with access to reproductive health clinics and places of worship.
The journalists’ arrests were "unprecedented" and a “really dramatic overcharge,” Rottman said.
Charges are usually brought at the local or state level, and it is very rare for journalists to be charged, let alone convicted, for covering a protest, Rottman said.
In January, FBI agents executed a search warrant on Washington Post reporter Hannah Natson’s home. Her phone, a watch, a personal laptop, and a work computer were seized. Natson was not the target of the investigation. Authorities were investigating a government contractor accused of possessing classified documents.
Prior to the raid, journalists had some assurance they could publish leaks without retribution, Stern said.
“Now, any journalist who wants to publish a government leak has to consider the possibility that their home might be raided,” Stern said.
Stern added that government leaks have been crucial to some of the most important news in American history.
“If you see these instances in isolation, you can point to precedent for them under administrations of both parties,” said Rottman. “When you put them all together, it's escalation after escalation.”
A CHILLING EFFECT
By going after independent journalists, the Trump administration is trying to “intimidate” reporters everywhere, Stern said. He added that it makes journalists “second-guess whether they can safely do their jobs without getting arrested” and creates a landscape where people are unsure how laws are enforced.
“Nobody knows what routine conduct the administration is going to figure out a way to go after next,” Stern said. “The only discernible rule that you can figure out if you're a journalist trying not to be targeted by this administration is to self-censor, to not report things that the administration doesn't want you to report.”
Stern added that people do not always know when publications are self-censoring.
“We will never know how many stories we didn't read about because a journalist decided to self-censor, or a news outlet decided to self-censor,” Stern said. “We know what news we do read. We don't know what we don't know. So it's entirely possible that some really significant news has not come across our radars because of fear of retribution.”
Despite the Trump administration’s wide variety of attacks, great journalism and reporting critical of the administration has still continued, Stern said.
“From the most powerful to, you could argue, the most vulnerable, the administration is coming up with tactics to suppress news gathering and chill reporting,” Stern said. “The media hasn't rolled over and died.”
According to reporting by PBS, after Lemon’s arrest, he said he would continue reporting.
"I have spent my entire career covering the news. I will not stop now,” Lemon said. “In fact, there is no more important time than right now, this very moment, for a free and independent media that shines a light on the truth and holds those in power accountable."
Marissa Fernandez covers politics for Medill on the Hill.
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