GEORGIA Fort, an independent journalist in Minnesota, was arrested by federal agents on Friday morning in connection with her coverage of an anti-ICE protest at a church this month.
Fort, an award-winning journalist with a focus on social justice issues who has worked in commercial and nonprofit television and radio news for more than 15 years, filmed and shared her own arrest. In 2022, she co-founded the Centre for Broadcast Journalism to increase diversity across Minnesota media outlets. She is also vice president of the Minnesota chapter of the National Association of Black Journalists, or NABJ.
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In a Facebook post of the video with the caption “Agents are at my door,” Fort said: “We are supposed to have our constitutional right of the freedom to film, to be a member of the press. I don’t feel like I have my First Amendment right as a member of the press.”
Fort surrendered to federal agents on the advice of her lawyer, according to local news reports.
A joint statement from the Minnesota Star Tribune, Minnesota Public Radio, the Minnesota Reformer, and other state and local news organisations said they “strongly condemned” the arrests of both Fort and Don Lemon, who was arrested in Los Angeles late Thursday night.
“The First Amendment recognises the press as holding a distinct and protected role in our democracy. In America, we do not arrest journalists for doing their jobs,” the statement read.
Lemon, a former CNN anchor who now also works independently, was arrested for covering the same protest at the St. Paul church. A magistrate judge had previously rejected charges against the journalists.
Lemon’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, told The New York Times that his arrest was an “unprecedented attack on the First Amendment and transparent attempt to distract attention from the many crises facing this administration.” He added that Lemon will “fight these charges vigorously and thoroughly in court.”
National NABJ President Errin Haines, who is also The 19th’s editor-at-large, said in a statement on behalf of NABJ that, “A free press, not a penalised one, is essential to democracy; especially when coverage intersects with contentious public issues.”
“As journalists, our first obligation is to bear witness and to inform,” Haines wrote. “When those obligations are met with detention or prosecution instead of protection, we must ask: what message are we sending about who gets to report and who gets silenced?”
