When Journalism Becomes Activism

My friends, this was one of those shows where the lines had to be drawn clearly, plainly, and without apology.

We’re being told—again—that journalism itself is under attack. That the arrest of Don Lemon for his alleged role in the occupation of a church in St. Paul, Minnesota is somehow proof that the Trump administration is “silencing the media.” That narrative is not just wrong—it’s dangerous.

Journalism is not a credential you flash to escape consequences. It is not a costume you put on while participating in lawbreaking. And it is absolutely not activism wrapped in a press badge.

What happened at Cities Church in St. Paul was not a protest.

It was not protected speech. It was not peaceful dissent. It was a trespass, an occupation, and an act of intimidation carried out during a worship service on private property. Parents were blocked from their children. Worship was shut down. Fear was introduced intentionally. And according to prosecutors, Don Lemon was not an outside observer—he was embedded, livestreaming, amplifying, and allegedly helping coordinate what unfolded.

Here’s the uncomfortable truth the media doesn’t want to confront: you cannot claim journalistic independence while actively participating in a crime.

Real journalism requires distance. It requires restraint. It requires a willingness to report facts without shaping outcomes.

Of course, many Americans haven’t seen real journalism for so long they wouldn’t recognize it.

If your goal is to persuade, mobilize, or intimidate, then you are no longer a journalist—you are an activist.

That doesn’t mean the press shouldn’t be protected. It absolutely should. I’ve said repeatedly that targeting “reporters” simply because they disagree politically with the party in power is unacceptable in a free society.

But the other side of that same coin is just as important: no one is immune from the law simply because they claim to be “the press.”

If journalists are allowed to break the law without consequence, then journalism itself becomes even more corrupted—if that’s even possible. It stops being a window into reality and becomes a tool of narrative enforcement. Of propaganda. And once that happens, trust collapses—because people will not trust anything they hear. And understandably so.

This is bigger than Don Lemon.

This is about whether we’re willing to tell the truth about what journalism is—and what it isn’t. It’s about whether we’re willing to defend the First Amendment without turning it into a shield for lawlessness. And it’s about whether we’re honest enough to admit that much of today’s media has abandoned its role as informer and embraced the role of activist.

Real journalism is not at risk in Trump’s America. What is at risk is the mask coming off the make believe journalists. And frankly, that moment is long overdue.

Conservative, not bitter.
Todd

📰 Journalism requires distance, not participation
⛪ A church occupation is not a protest
📵 Credentials don’t excuse lawbreaking
🎭 Activism masquerading as reporting
⚖️ Accountability protects real journalism
🇺🇸 The First Amendment isn’t a shield for intentionally creating chaos

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My friends, in case you needed more evidence that the Radical Left has lost whatever was left of its mind, consider this story.

A group of anti-ICE protesters in Linwood, California, mistakenly confronted two TSA agents having dinner at a restaurant. The delusional agitators thought they’d spotted ICE agents and reacted in the only way they know how: horns, signs, chaos, probably coordinating on Signal to track two people whose biggest crime was getting too frisky in the TSA line.

But everyone who works for the federal government does not work for ICE. In fact, most don’t.

Once you give up critical thinking in favor of virtue signaling outrage, you lose all capacity for reason. You’ve been given over to a reprobate mind. At that point, you don’t see facts — you just see red.

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One of the most effective tricks the Left uses isn’t violence. It’s vocabulary.

If they can rename something, they can excuse it.

After all, the person who sets the definitions are rules of the debate usually wins, don’t they?

That’s exactly what happened at Cities Church in St. Paul.

We’re told it was a protest. We’re told it was an interruption. We’re told it was journalism in action.

But none of that is true.

A protest happens in public. A protest does not seize private property. A protest does not shut down worship. A protest does not block parents from their children. A protest does not rely on intimidation and fear.

Calling lawbreaking a protest doesn’t magically transform it into protected speech. It’s a linguistic sleight of hand designed to short-circuit your judgment before you even get to the facts.

And it works, especially on people who only read headlines and swallow the narrative hook, line and sinker.

This is why language matters.

When the media says interruption instead of intimidation, the victims disappear. When they say protest instead of trespass, the crime vanishes. When they say journalism instead of activism, accountability is treated as oppression.

Words don’t change reality. They just reveal who’s trying to hide it.

And when the media starts working harder to rename behavior than to report it, you’re no longer being informed. You’re being manipulated.

That’s not journalism. That’s propaganda.