Nakima Levy Armstrong

Even here in Minnesota, there has been consistent reports of journalists being tear gassed, being shot at with rubber bullets or different canisters.

And even there was a really strange disinformation campaign

campaign that was launched against the publisher of the biggest newspaper here in the state of Minnesota, where users on X, MAGA supporters, they used AI image generation to unmask the agent who fatally shot Renee Good.

And then they posted the name Steve Grove on with that image, plastered it all over X and told people to go find

Steve Grove, the guy who shot Rene Good.

But that's not who shot Rene Good.

He's actually the publisher of a paper.

And so it's really unfortunate for our industry in its entirety when I think people for the last decade in media have been trying to regain the trust of Americans to now see it weaponized

for political gain, for the political agenda of this administration is extremely dangerous because what a lot of people are not naming is that we actually have an information war that is ongoing right now.

But on the other side of that, I would say it is allowing an opportunity to emerge for independent journalists like us who are on the ground, who are with the people, who are continuing to amplify the facts.

Well, one, I was a law professor for 14 years.

So now I'm still a lawyer.

I'm out there with the people though.

So I guess that's my classroom, right?

When you're having elected officials tell lies before the public, gaslight the public, and when there's no counter,

the public is going to believe what they hear so that's what makes the press conferences that that we have as black activists so important people trust our voices because they've seen us out there for so long they've seen us be effective able to break down the law and the facts and provide a completely different perspective than what they may see in mainstream media or what they're hearing from the trump administration even from democrats

So we're being gaslit.

We all know this, but the public doesn't know this.

And when elected officials remain silent, people just fill in the gaps, either based on the lies from the Trump administration,

Or they fill in the gaps from the silence that's happening and they assume that our elected officials are doing all they can.