The New York Occasions Journal is clearly inflating Don Lemon’s already huge ego with a narrative titled: “‘I Am the Information’: The Absurd Drama (and Excessive Stakes) of the Don Lemon Affair.”
Occasions author Matt Flegenheimer implies that Lemon isn’t precisely the most effective instance of journalism and that he’s remarkably caught on himself. The absurd drama appears to be how each side of the Trump wars have made Lemon’s post-CNN profession:
It may really feel as if Lemon and Trump had a typical objective: to make Don Lemon the face of American journalism — unmistakable proof that as we speak’s press is both hopelessly timid and compromised (besides Don Lemon) or stocked with bad-faith lefties cosplaying as correct newspeople (like Don Lemon).
Let’s focus first on the overwhelming egotism of Lemon placed on show:
Lemon has largely averted discussing particulars which may think about his protection, citing the ramifications for all journalists “if this goes the fallacious method.” However he did volunteer one thing his therapist had shared lately. “He mentioned, ‘You’re Black historical past,’” Lemon instructed me. He wept, he mentioned, however he didn’t disagree.
Then we come to the historic glue-sniffing portion with Lemon’s pal and comic D.L. Hughley, who wasn’t making an attempt to be hilarious:
Hughley joined the stage and in contrast himself and Lemon, “on a a lot decrease scale,” to James Baldwin and William F. Buckley, pining for a future “progressive Trump” to take the White Home and countergovern with equal pressure.
“So,” Lemon replied, “ought to I run?”
The Lemon Heads roared. It had struck him in Los Angeles, he continued, whereas he was detained “in that holding room,” that possibly he had “been enjoying at too small a stage.” Quickly sufficient, Hughley was evaluating Lemon to Rosa Parks, too.
I didn’t have “Don Lemon is Invoice Buckley and Rosa Parks” on my NewsBusters bingo card for this one.
Flegenheimer did permit a bit of dissent in a while within the piece, from Christopher Rufo:
Some who assume little of Lemon nonetheless regard this chapter as extra honest. “An irony now’s that Lemon is extra trustworthy,” Christopher Rufo, a conservative activist, instructed me. “When he was at CNN, he was smuggling left-wing opinion between the notion of the Walter Cronkite straight-news tv persona.”
I do not assume anybody thought Lemon was both “straight information” or Cronkite. CNN might need claimed it was simply “information,” however the man was kissing as much as his Chicago buddies the Obamas earlier than he was dropping rhetorical bombs on Trump.
Geraldo Rivera was additionally quoted, making the plain level about Lemon’s participation in a church invasion.
“I say to any journalist, or actually any avenue reporter, ‘Steer clear of church buildings,’” Rivera, an acquaintance of Lemon’s from their time on cable, instructed me. “There’s nothing however issues.”
As a lot as liberal retailers just like the Occasions need this to be a pure “freedom to report” state of affairs, Lemon was clearly a co-conspirator in disrupting (and ending) a church service. Lemon was not “extra trustworthy” on this ruckus.
“I’m simply right here photographing, I’m not a part of the group,” Lemon mentioned, nonetheless offscreen. “I’m a journalist.” He stood to the aspect, principally observing aloud. A younger man within the nook, he seen, was unsettled and crying.
However the protest, Lemon intimated, was a pure consequence of current occasions. Minnesotans’ due course of had been violated, he mentioned. Folks have been being brutalized. “You need to be prepared to enter locations and disrupt and make individuals uncomfortable,” Lemon mentioned, as demonstrators (many additionally recording) and worshipers circled each other within the confusion. “That’s what this nation is about.”
Let’s guess that if a rowdy group of conservative protesters interrupted a New York Occasions newsroom assembly and shouted it down, they would not really feel like that was an amazing place for an indignant protest. The First Modification is not nearly newspapers. It is also concerning the freedom to worship, which the Occasions would not see as an essential freedom in any respect.
PS: That is the puffy passage that Brian Stelter appreciated on X:
“The hazard is the credibility. He’s the information.” https://t.co/ueqFD4ioFe pic.twitter.com/4gxqs6RKeE
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) March 22, 2026
