The Arrest Of Don Lemon: A Message To America
Heather Cox Richardson:
"...Independent producers, independent news agencies, are the ones thatare really getting the scoops, the ones that are really holding the president and the administration to account."
"The Bill of Rights was a Bill of Rights against this new constitution, which was creating a government that was very powerful."
"And then, of course, we got the arrest of Don Lemon. And that honestly, I feel like is something we need to kick around a bit because it's a real window into where the country is right now in a lot of different ways.
So you are in New York. And how are people reacting to that arrest? How are you reacting to that arrest? Are you worried about it? Well, am I worried about it? Yeah. I mean, I'm worried about it not because I mean, it's farcical, the arrest itself.
So I'm not necessarily worried for Don Lemon yet. I'm worried because Black journalists are getting arrested. Journalists are getting arrested, number one.
All by itself, that's like an authoritarian bingo card centre square and Black journalists. So, yeah, I'm concerned. It's part of it's like if you have a sheet, a checkoff sheet of things that wannabe dictators, authoritarians do.
Arresting journalists is a big one. And making sure that they're Black journalists with this crew of people who are doing it, that's a message. So I want to get into that, but maybe it would help a little bit if you set up for everybody why a free press is so important to the framers of theConstitution, because they throw it right there in the First Amendment to the Constitution.
What The Heck Just Happened?!
See a slideshow summarising Heather Cox Richardson's discussion about the increasing arrests of indepenedent journalists, and the wider significance in the on-going struggle for the USA republic...
And you actually have a really good way of looking at that Bill of Rights, what the Bill of Rights does. It doesn't actually confer individual rights. Can you walk people through that? Yeah, sure.
And absolutely that the founding folk, that generation, saw a free press as essential for a whole bunch of reasons. First of all, the country was so huge. How would it be united together as a country if there wasn't a press actually doing that? But more important, the press is supposed to offer the people who are supposed to be controlling everything insight and information on what is happening behind the scenes in government, behind the scenes.
The press, never at the time, although it was used for entertainment purposes, it wasn't seen as something that was for entertainment. It was seen as something that was for the people as almost a branch of government, particularly the press. James Madison talks about the press in these early years almost like it's a fourth branch of government.
And as you suggested, the Bill of Rights isn't necessarily just, you know, I have my right to protest, I have my right to free speech. The Bill of Rights was a Bill of Rights against this new constitution, which was creating a government that was very powerful. And the idea was we, the people, maintain these rights.
It was about Americans maintaining rights, not about individual sort of stepping out. People at the time were thinking about a big we. So a free press, almost a branch of government, essential, I'm going to quote Thomas Jefferson, at some point when they were early on, when they were debating whether the Senate should be open to the press, open to journalists or not, because it was closed for a while.
Thomas Jefferson says something along the lines of, well, if it's closed and we keep it closed, it'll be the most corrupt body on the face of the earth. What keeps the corruption out? The fact that the press can see what's happening. So yeah, a free press is a way that we, the people, at least can attempt to think about accountability.
- Heather Cox Richardson
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