The newsroom was sleepy early one morning. The newspaper I worked for on Staten Island had been put to bed for the day at 7 a.m..  And I was hiding behind my big reporter’s cup of coffee, waiting to see what breaking news the new day would offer. Where would I get sent? The city editor soon roused me.

“This is a gory one, Rob,” the editor said. At 8:30 in the morning two hitmen had walked into a bar and unloaded their guns on a patron, killing him and splattering his blood. I was sent to the scene of the crime. 

I was a 25-year-old newspaper reporter earning my spurs in the world of journalism, covering stories from clogged sewers to scandals in nursing homes but this was my first murder.  The journalism life was always an adventure.

Yellow police tape surrounded the scene but when I showed my NYC press pass the cops let me through. “Why does he get in?” someone yelled. The answer that the authorities had agreed to was that I should have a privilege to see the crime, to enable me to carry the news back to the people.

What I saw became the lead of my story — Sinatra playing on the juke box, brain smatters on the mirror behind the broken whiskey bottles, a body of a young man sprawled on the floor. As I left one cop whispered to me, the guy was a gun runner and he stiffed the mob. They killed him. My big tip! Later that day I discovered guns in the back seat of the victim’s car and alerted the police. 

Don Lemon and the First Amendment in the age of Trump

I’m recalling my “privilege” — which was not the law but just a courtesy the NYPD and other agencies gave the press — because of the case of Don Lemon, 59, the former anchor from CNN who is now an independent journalist. He was charged on Jan. 26 with a conspiracy to deprive others of civil rights and interfering with religious freedom under an obscure federal law. 

The incident took place in a St. Paul, Minnesota, baptist church as demonstrators protested that the church’s pastor was involved with ICE. Lemon said he was just covering the demonstration, and it’s hard not to believe him. He has no history of letting his journalism cross over into activism.

That’s not to say he is shy about his opinion. As the anchor of CNN’s nightly news, he called President Donald Trump a “racist” for his criticism of immigrants from certain countries that Trump described with a curse word. Lemon, who is Black, also lambasted the president for false statements about Barack Obama’s birth certificate.

But before Trump started capturing and killing leaders of foreign countries, he went after American journalists. Trump fired back, calling Lemon a “sleazebag” and the "dumbest man on television.” But politicians do not have to like reporters, they just can’t go after them because they dislike their opinions or reporting. The 45 words of the First Amendment ensure that. However, that does not mean reporters need to be given a special privilege.

Journalistic privilege is under attack by Trump

The Supreme Court dealt with the question of privilege three decades ago, but it’s at the forefront again in 2026  because the president has challenged it whenever he can, from seizing a reporter’s computer in Virginia to charging Lemon with crime for simply reporting.

To be clear, the Supreme Court on three occasions refused to give the press privileges that other citizens do not have — from protecting anonymous sources to shielding newsrooms to gaining access to places like prisons where citizens cannot go. But what’s known as a “qualified” privilege has emerged — just the way the NYPD let me enter the crime scene. Until now.  

Reporters need to see inside events and report back to the public. Lemon was interviewing demonstrators in the church, and filming. He clearly was a newsgatherer, not a participant.

But his status as a newsgatherer did not stop the federal government from putting Lemon in jail for a night. And allow the president revenge against an enemy. His arrest was dangerous retribution, a First Amendment violation.

And while I don’t mean to underplay the issue of privilege, I am more worried about the larger picture — for one, that the journalistic troops are disappearing from the scenes of crimes and demonstrations, from school board meetings and courtrooms. And the public’s faith in journalism is fading. It makes it easier for the president to get rid of any privilege.  

Only 45% of Americans have confidence in journalists, with 58% seeing bias. What reporters often get is harassment, from verbal abuse to insults to physical abuse. More than 60% of journalists have received threats. At least 2,100 local newspapers have closed since 2004.  Journalism is in a profound and turbulent transformation — and it threatens democracy. 

Analysts are scrutinizing the video of Lemon inside the church, as if it’s really the point. Because of massive layoffs in the past decade, fewer and fewer reporters show up at school board meetings and court hearings. A journalist’s presence should be encouraged at a demonstration; we should say hoorah because we need to see what’s taking place on our streets. It’s the lifeblood of a democracy.  

But, instead, this administration — which is supposed to protect the Bill of Rights — is blocking journalists from reporting on their authoritarian methods. 

In my reporting days, when I covered federal court, the judge let me sit in the jury box, giving me the privilege of seeing closely and clearly what was happening. This administration would stick me in the last row of the court — or push me into the hall!

American democracy depends on reporters

We need the agents of the people — reporters — on the front lines more than ever doing surveillance. We need them on the streets of York, Pennsylvania, and Burlington, Vermont, and Utica, New York. Laying off 300 quality reporters from The Washington Post is a blow to lighting up the darkness that obviously Jeff Bezos cares little about.

While it could be argued that social media and some new online news sources can replace the so-called “legacy” media, it’s an unreliable tool — a dangerous amalgam of fact and fiction.

And artificial intelligence possibilities are making it even more difficult to discern truth. Moreover, going to Facebook or TikTok will not fill the aching hole in democracy.  More than 200 U.S. counties and 50 million Americans now live in “news deserts” with no local news coverage, leaving rural populations without access to community information.  And yet Trump cuts public broadcasting — which has long been an important information source in rural counties — to only make it worse. 

The reversal of all this begins with the recognition that news fuels our democracy, even if the party in power doesn’t like what it tells us. The press deserves a spiritual privilege because we won’t see the forest for the trees without a thriving media system, profitable and protected by law.

Don Lemon is important but he is only symbolic of a media system under assault. 

Rob Miraldi’s First Amendment writing has won numerous awards. He taught journalism at the State University of New York for many years. Email:rob.miraldi@gmail.com   

© Daily Messenger (MPNnow)