Guest Essay

Joel Simon: Journalists should stand up for free expression – not just press freedom

By Joel Simon

February 4, 2026

This essay is part of a series on the 2026 Lenfest Institute-Aspen Digital Local News Summit, an annual convening of the country’s leading journalists, publishers, funders, news creators, and other industry professionals.

Throughout US history, journalists’ ability to cover protests has been fundamental to protecting other First Amendment rights. Civil rights leader John Lewis once proclaimed, “If it hadn’t been for the media, for brave, courageous journalists, the civil rights movement would have been like a bird without wings.” This is why media organizations have frequently called on the public to stand up for the rights of journalists to report the news.

But recent events in Minneapolis have inverted this calculus. Instead, media institutions need to defend the rights of average citizens to record and document what they observe, including law enforcement activities. Such informal news gathering is not only critical to public understanding, but it increasingly forms the backbone of media reports and analysis. News organizations ranging from The New York Times to Bellingcat relied on access to content and visual information generated by people in the street in producing their groundbreaking accountability reporting on the recent killings in Minneapolis.

Journalists working in the streets have the same rights as any other member of the public. Journalists exercise these rights in a particular way – their job is to inform, and they generally share a professional identity and ethical framework. This is true whether journalists work for large institutions or operate independently, like Don Lemon and Georgia Fort, who were arrested last week following their coverage of a protest inside a church.

It is glaringly obvious that when the public’s First Amendment rights are curtailed, journalism itself is diminished. Journalists risk losing access to critical information and are also caught up in the crackdown. This is why media organizations can and should become more active participants in legal efforts to defend “the right to record” and other essential freedom of expression principles. The specifics require discussion. But with some deliberation and creativity, it should be quite possible to do so without compromising journalistic independence.

This essay was adapted from the JPI’s Late January Update, which you can find here.