Editor's Note: This is an updated version of a column that appeared last week.
(TriceEdneyWire.com) - When millions rallied in defense of Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel—giants of late-night television whose dismissal or censorship loomed—the outcry was swift and effective. Their platforms were preserved, at least for now. But for countless lesser-known writers, columnists, and community truth-tellers, censorship has long been the silent norm, and under the shadow of Trumpism, it threatens to grow more suffocating.
For decades, I worked inside major journalism institutions that proudly invoked the virtues of a free press, while quietly silencing those who dared live out those principles. I was one of the first Black women to sit on the editorial board of a major newspaper. My work was not dismissed because it lacked quality, but because my voice—rooted in experiences outside the white male corridors of power—refused to conform. I believed my perspective could enrich our coverage. Instead, it branded me an outsider.
This struggle is not new. It is the timeless clash between voices that testify from the margins and systems that demand loyalty to privilege. When I wrote about poverty, inequality, or the struggles of everyday people, I was not trying to be rebellious—I was bearing witness. But privilege prefers a flattering portrait over an honest mirror.
I recall one editorial meeting where a U.S. senator boasted about billions in “savings” from massive health-care cuts. When I asked how many children would be left malnourished or sick, the silence was chilling—as though two skunks had wandered into the boardroom.
Too often, stories vital to Black communities were dismissed as “not news” or were gutted in editing until their urgency evaporated. My investigation into Medicaid policies that destroyed African American doctors’ practices is one example. Patients went untreated, livelihoods were ruined—but because the devastation was concentrated in Black neighborhoods, the story never made the front page.
Meanwhile, my white colleagues’ opinions often sailed unchallenged to print while mine were interrogated, delayed, or dismissed. In the newsroom, as in the streets, the fight for equality was unrelenting. My refusal to “play along” ultimately cost me my position. My words were branded a “poison pen”—too inconvenient for the powerful, too committed to the voiceless.
What was brushed aside as “minor” in my case now plays out on a national scale. In-house censorship has metastasized, increasingly echoing the playbook of authoritarian regimes.
Former President Donald Trump has made his contempt for independent media explicit. He has pressured networks like ABC and CBS to soften critical coverage. He has filed lawsuits against The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. His allies in Congress stripped federal funding from NPR and PBS. Under his influence, the FCC has targeted diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives while promising to root out so-called “liberal bias.”
He recently stated outright that networks, newspapers, and talk show hosts who portray him unfavorably will be punished. That threat is already reshaping once-trusted newsrooms.
Distinguished Black journalists have been disproportionately targeted. At The Washington Post, columnist Karen Attiah was dismissed after she challenged right-wing commentator Charlie Kirk’s vile claim that Black women—including Michelle Obama and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson—“lack brain processing power.” Such voices are not just silenced—they are erased.
The danger goes further. The administration has imposed rules on Pentagon reporters requiring them to pledge not to publish information without official authorization. If such restrictions hold, they will not stop at the Pentagon. They will creep across agencies, shackling journalists and crippling democracy itself.
Silencing voices—whether late-night comedians or unknown columnists—does not erase the truths they speak. It widens the gulf between those in power and those who endure its consequences.
History shows us what happens when censorship becomes law: democracy collapses, and tyranny fills the void. My warning is simple: what happens to the “minor” voices today will happen to the major ones tomorrow.