First Amendment Under Siege In Marion, Kansas

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

(Note:  As a former part-owner of a small town newspaper, this is a story that resonates deeply with this blogger.)

This past Friday officers of the police department of Marion, Kansas, a community of less than two thousand individuals, raided the town's newspaper office and the home of the newspaper's publisher, seizing computers, records, and even cell phones.  The police produced a warrant signed by a local judge which stated they were investigating "identity theft" and "unlawful acts concerning computers."    

That police action brought an immediate response from a host of national news organizations acting under the auspices of the Reporter's Committee for Freedom of the Press which sent a four-page letter to the local chief of police requesting that all seized materials immediately be returned to the newspaper, any newspaper records that had been accessed by the police be purged, and that the police chief begin an independent and transparent review of his department's actions in the matter.  Among the thirty-four signatories to the letter were CNN, The Associated Press, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Los Angeles Times.

Eric Meyer, the owner and publisher of the Marion County Record, said that the town's entire five-member police force as well as two county deputies had participated in the raids an had seized "everything we have."  The newspaper goes to press on Tuesday evenings, and the publisher said that it wasn't clear how they would manage that deadline, but he indicated that they would publish something.

Eric Meyer is no country bumpkin of a publisher.  He has twenty years of experience working for The Milwaukee Journal - and twenty-six years of experience teaching journalism at the University of Illinois.

The escalating incident seems to have begun last week when a local restaurant owner kicked reporters for the newspaper out of her business during a public forum with the local GOP congressman.  Meyer, who reported on the incident in his newspaper, said that the congressman's staff were "apologetic" over the incident.  The business owner, however, was not apologetic and responded to Meyer's reporting with what one Kansas newspaper called "hostile comments" on her Facebook page.

At that point a confidential source provided the newspaper with information of a derogatory nature about the legal history of the restaurant operator, information which the newspaper verified through official sources.  But the publisher suspected that his paper was being "set up," and he notified the local police of the anonymous report - and Meyer decided not to publish the material.

But the police notified the restaurant owner of what had been transpiring, and she went before the city council to complain that newspaper had illegally obtained and disseminated sensitive documents about her.  Her complaints to the council caused the publisher to rethink his position of restraint, and he published what had been learned on Thursday.

And the following day the raid occurred.

(To complicate the matter even further, it now appears as though the Marion County Record has also been conducting an investigation into alleged past misconduct by the local chief of police.)

The Executive Director of the Kansas Press Association, Emily Bradbury, had this to say:

"An attack on a newspaper office through an illegal search is not just an infringement on the rights of journalists but an assault on the very foundation of democracy and the public's right to know.  This cannot be allowed to stand."

That foundation of democracy of which the director speaks is embodied in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, and it was "First" for a reason.  If the press falls, so too will democracy.

Stand strong, Marion County Record!  You are standing for all  of us - and for America!

(Footnote:  On October 18, 2007, deputies working under the command of Maricopa County (Arizona) Sheriff Joe Arpaio arrested the two owners/publishers of the Phoenix New Times Newspaper in late night raids at their homes over an article that they had written which included, among other information, Sheriff Arpaio's home address - information that was readily available through other sources including a local government website.  The aggrieved owners sued Sheriff Arpaio in Federal Court, and on December 20, 2013, the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to approve a 3.75 million dollar settlement to the newspaper owners.  

At the time of the settlement one of the plaintiffs said, remarking on the original arrests:  "This is outrageous!  Where in America do you arrest journalists for what hey write?"  Well, apparently in Phoenix, Arizona, and Marion, Kansas, but it could be very costly!)