On January 18, 2026, in St. Paul, Minnesota, a protest occurred involving immigration and customs enforcements outside of a church. Don Lemon, a black former CNN news anchor, was present at this protest and live-streamed portions of it. In the days following, he was arrested along with another independent journalist on charges of violating churchgoers’ right to worship. According to a report by the Poynter Institute, “Press freedom advocates have denounced the arrests as attacks on Lemon’s and Fort’s First Amendment rights.”
This arrest happened even though Lemon was present acting as a journalist to get a story on why this protest was happening and why ICE being there was an issue. Lemon has previously won awards for his journalism covering faith, race, and equality at CNN, though he is no longer employed by a major news organization.
Taniya McQueen, a Langston University graduate and a news anchor at WTVA News in Tupelo, Mississippi, said, “I feel like for young journalists, it definitely can be a little scary, you know, like if they’re going into this career field and they’re seeing all of these things that we’re put up against, you know, on a daily basis.”
Despite the arrest of Lemon, McQueen does not feel that people’s trust in news anchors and reporters has changed.
”We still have to work hard, obviously, but we don’t have to work as hard as they did like back in the day. But I don’t feel like it really changes how people, like, look at us,” said McQueen.
McQueen says she would be willing to risk her career if it meant standing up for something she strongly believed in. “100%. I feel like anyone should be like that. At least stand 10 toes on how you feel, and if you were to be a person to kind of just, I don’t want to say give up, but if you were to be a person that kind of gave up or kind of fell into how people want you to react, then what would that do for the generations to come after you, you have to stand your ground and be willing to put yourself”.
Kaycie Washington, a graduating senior at Langston University, said, “I don’t think that most journalists go into covering a story looking to start a protest, are looking to get people riled up or looking to start a riot, as they love to say. No, I think that they just want people to know the truth.”
She agreed with McQueen that she would be willing to face consequences for telling a story that matters. “It depends on my scenario, but if it’s the right scenario, yes. I would be willing to, um, face legal consequences or do jail time, especially if like the information I’m saying is completely true and like nothing is – nothing is false. Like, you can fact check everything, then yeah. Yeah, because it’s not my fault. I’m just a journalist telling a story.”
Despite Lemon’s arrest, both Washington and McQueen say they will stand behind doing journalism they believe is important.
Christian Macklin
News Editor and Staff Writer
Christian Macklin is a rising sophomore broadcast Journalism major from Memphis Tennessee with a minor in psychology. Chrisitan is a first-generation college student; Christian will be the first in his family to graduate college from Langston University. Christian chose to write for the Gazette to be a voice of reason and to hear students’ stories, because nobody tells their story better than themselves. Christian believes that working for the Gazette will help him grow the necessary people skills and writing skills to be a journalist. The work Christian does for the Gazette is his passion to help grow the journalism industry. Hobbies Christian enjoys doing outside of journalism include reading, traveling, shopping, eating, watching movies, helping the community and spending time with family. Christian can be reached at his Instagram langston_man28 or his student email: chmackl@okstate.edu
