The press must be free to cover public events and protests

World Press Freedom Canada condemns the arrests of American journalists Georgia Fort and Don Lemon over their coverage of a protest at a church in Minnesota.

The right to cover public events and protests is a fundamental component of constitutionally guaranteed freedom of the press in the United States and Canada.

Fort is an award-winning freelance journalist and founder of community-focused news outlets. Lemon is a former CNN anchor who now has his own YouTube show. They were covering a protest that entered a church in St. Paul, Minn., where a pastor, David Easterwood, also serves as acting field director at a local Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) field office.

U.S. federal law makes it a criminal offence to interfere with the exercise of religious freedom in a place of worship. Fort and Lemon argue they were exercising their constitutionally protected right to report on the protest inside the church.

Fort and Lemon were indicted by a grand jury in Federal District Court in Minnesota, after a federal magistrate judge refused a prior effort to indict them along with the group of activists who participated in the protest. 

Journalism organizations across the U.S. note that the right to cover protests is protected by the First Amendment of the American constitution. They warn the arrests are part of a wider effort by the Trump administration to target journalists and erode those rights.

Seth Stern, chief of advocacy at Freedom of the Press Foundation, said the government’s arrest of the journalists amounted to a clear attack on freedom of the press.

“News outlets across the political spectrum need to loudly defend Lemon’s and Fort’s rights,” Stern said in a statement. “Journalists are not making themselves the story, Trump is.”