Don Lemon’s arrest is an indictment of US freedom

Journalist Don Lemon was arrested as he reported on a gathering protesting the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) unit in Minnesota. The Associated Press reported that:

The charges stem from Lemon’s actions while covering a protest, raising concerns among press freedom advocates about the criminalisation of journalistic activity.

Let’s be clear. Don Lemon did not call for unrest. He did not incite violence, organise mass resistance, or step outside the bounds of liberal democratic debate. Instead, his arrest while reporting on a protest exposes a far more uncomfortable reality: power has grown brittle and it now reaches for punishment when scrutiny feels too close.

This moment reveals the authoritarian drift of the Trump administration and, more pointedly, who bears the cost when the states legitimacy comes under pressure.

Don Lemon: when liberal positions become liabilities

As a former CNN anchor, Lemon is smack bang in the centre of the political spectrum. Historically, his positions would have registered as unremarkable. Opposition to unaccountable force, scepticism towards militarised policing, and concern over immigration enforcement once formed the backbone of liberal democratic critique. These views alighted with constitutional restrain, not rebellion.

However, something has shifted.

Today, the state increasingly treats scrutiny itself – however mild –  as a provocation. As executive power expands and surveillance becomes normalised, even mild dissent now attracts suspicion. Consequently, journalism that merely documents authority – not necessarily agitates against it – is shut down with considerable force.

Crucially, when a Black journalist raises that challenge, institutions rarely interpret it as professional distance. Instead they read it as intent to agitate.

Surveillance disguised as neutrality

Editorial scrutiny often presents itself as neutral concern: questions about tone, warnings about objectivity and accusations of advocacy. In practice, however, this scrutiny operates as institutional suspicion.

Neutrality, it seems, remains intact only when journalism aligns with power. When reporting destabilises official narratives, neutrality becomes negotiable. As a result, white journalists benefit from an assumption of detachment, while Black journalists must reportedly demonstrate it.

Because of this imbalance, identical actions generate unequal consequences. The determining factor is not behaviour, but who performs it and what their presence exposes.

Lemon’s reporting remained measured, legible, and recognisably liberal. Ironically, that restraint made it more threatening, not less. The state does not fear incoherent outrage. It fears critique that cannot be dismissed as extremism.

The free speech contradiction

At the same time, those in power insist they value free speech. They repeatedly frame dissent as welcome, provided it remains responsible and measured.

Lemon’s met those criteria. Nevertheless, coercion followed.

This contradiction matters. A system that claims to prize reason while punishing those who test it does not defend free speech. Instead, it manages it. Calls for civil discourse function less as invitation and more as constraints, allowing speech only when it reassures power rather than interrogates it.

Ultimately, the response exposes fragility, not confidence. A secure system answers criticism. A brittle one suppresses it.

Another consideration of Lemon’s arrest is the spatial context. The fact that his arrest took place around a church, a site the state traditionally treats as morally insulated and symbolically untouchable. Religious spaces have long been leveraged by authority to legitimise control, casting state action as protection rather than coercion. When power cloaks itself in religious sanction, scrutiny becomes easier to criminalise.

This is not about faith. It is about how religious symbolism is mobilised to discipline dissent. By framing the site as sacred and the journalist as disruptive, the state redraws space itself as a boundary of obedience. In doing so, it turns moral authority into territorial control, narrowing where journalism is allowed to exist at all.

From scrutiny to criminalisation

In response to Don Lemon’s arrest, the Freedom of the Press Foundation said:

Arresting journalists for doing their jobs sets a dangerous precedent and threatens the public’s right to know.

Authoritarianism rarely announces itself. Instead it advances through procedure. Laws stretch beyond their original purpose. Reporting blurs into obstruction. Monitoring quietly replaces protection.

When authorities detain or arrest journalists under the language of public order or interference, the message becomes unmistakable: scrutiny itself now constitutes a risk.

This shift intensifies during moments of political anxiety. As legitimacy thins, power prioritises containment over accountability. Accordingly, journalism survives only when it remains predictable, deferential, and safely non-disruptive.

The most serious danger, then, is not radicalisation. Rather, it is anticipatory obedience, the slow internalisation of limits imposed not for accuracy, but for the safety of power.

Lemon has rejected the suggestion that his reporting crossed a line, framing the case as a threat to press freedom:

I have spent my entire career covering the news. I will not stop now. 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.

Race as structure, not sentiment

Importantly, this is not an argument about identity politics.

Black journalists operate within a historical framework that has long cast Black presence as disruption in public space, political discourse, and intellectual authority. That history does not disappear inside courtrooms or newsrooms. Instead, it reasserts itself through surveillance, suspicion and unequal enforcement.

As a result, the same behaviour produces different interpretations. Surveillance follows the bodies power has always keened to regulate.

A warning, not an exception

It would be tempting to treat this case as an aberration, a mistake that institutions can quietly correct. That interpretation would miss the point.

This moment signals a narrowing of legitimate journalism itself. When liberal dissent becomes suspect and calm scrutiny triggers coercion, democratic accountability has already begun to erode.

A free press does not exist to reassure authority. It exists to unsettle it. If that function no longer enjoys protection, particularly for those already over surveilled, then free speech becomes a slogan rather than a practice.

The real question, therefore, is not whether Don Lemon crossed a line.

Instead, it is how narrow the space for journalism has become, if measured critique now invites punishment.

When mild opposition registers as a threat, authoritarianism is no longer approaching. It is already operational.

Featured image via the Canary