Kansas Newspaper Is Talk of Town, and Not Just for Getting Raided

One particular person stated The Marion County Record lined two current deaths insensitively. Another stated a handful of articles centered needlessly on a easy paperwork error that led to tax credit getting rejected. A 3rd thought an opinion column harped too harshly on the poor high quality of kids’s letters to Santa Claus.

The Marion County Record, a newspaper that stories on a small city of lower than 2,000 folks on the western fringe of the Flint Hills in Kansas, was a First Amendment trigger célèbre up to now week, after law enforcement officials and sheriff’s deputies raided its newsroom, an extremely uncommon prevalence in American journalism. The authorities seized computer systems and telephones, in what they stated was an investigation into identification theft and pc crimes.

Reporters and tv cameras have descended upon the city to cowl the raids, which have been roundly condemned by news organizations and free press advocates. On Wednesday, the native prosecutor returned the digital gadgets, saying he had decided there wasn’t a “legally sufficient nexus” to justify the searches.

Marion residents, nonetheless, are having far totally different conversations in regards to the over 150-year-old paper and its proprietor and editor, Eric Meyer, who has been working day-to-day operations for the previous two years. At the middle of the discussions: What is the suitable relationship between a neighborhood and an area news group, and what responsibility, if any, does it should be a booster for the locations it covers?

In interviews after the raid, many residents stated they noticed the police search not simply as a surprising broadside towards the press, but in addition as a pure, if unlucky, outgrowth of rising tensions between the neighborhood and The Record’s protection. Some described the weekly paper as too detrimental and polemical. “The role should of course be positive about everything that is going on in Marion, and not stir things up and look at the negative side of things,” stated Mitch Carlson, who co-owns the native grocery retailer.

Mr. Meyer rejected that argument, saying the paper was simply fulfilling its function as a watchdog with aggressive reporting, like protecting City Council conferences that the general public was excluded from or investigating the brand new police chief. He stated the paper’s journalism made the city stronger. This week’s paper revealed quite a few messages of help, although few appeared to be from locals. He famous that the highest story within the paper revealed two days earlier than the raid was a couple of 10-year-old taking part in music at an area senior heart.

“Gee, that’s really negative news,” he stated.

Left within the center in current days have been many others attempting to type out the place they stood.

“People here are not stupid,” stated Mike Powers, a retired decide who’s working unopposed within the city’s mayoral election this fall. “People here do care about constitutional rights and things like the freedom of the press.”

But, he added: “I think there is a pretty sizable majority that would agree that the paper’s coverage has been overly aggressive and, I hesitate to use the word mean, but perhaps inappropriately negative.”

News organizations, small and enormous, usually rub residents the fallacious approach, significantly once they intention to carry energy to account. Some of these shops have confronted authorized assaults from rich residents, who’ve realized that lawsuits, even ones which can be in the end dismissed, can severely harm publications on a shoestring funds.

The Record, regardless of the complaints from locals, stays well-read, at the same time as readership dwindles at papers throughout the nation. On the day of the raid, the paper had a print and digital circulation of about 4,000 in a county of round 11,000 folks. The paper has added over 2,000 subscribers up to now week, principally folks from exterior the world exhibiting their help.

Mr. Meyer’s mother and father, Bill and Joan, purchased the paper 25 years in the past. “It was a fine paper, and they were fine people,” Mr. Powers, the previous decide, stated.

Joan Meyer died on Saturday, the day after the raid on the house she lived in together with her son. Mr. Meyer stated in a news article that the stress of the searches was a contributing think about her demise.

It was when Eric Meyer took over in 2021, a number of the residents stated, that the paper modified. Mr. Meyer, 69, grew up in Marion earlier than working as a reporter and editor at The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the town’s main day by day paper, after which as a journalism professor on the University of Illinois. He returned to the city full time in 2021.

“Somebody wrote, ‘He came back to destroy the town,’” Mr. Meyer stated. “No, I came back to help the town, not destroy it.”

Mr. Meyer’s editorials, just like the one in regards to the kids’s letters to Santa — “The Ghosts of Christmases Past seem to have found better spelling and grammar (though not necessarily greater compassion, humor or ingenuity) in Santa letters from days gone by,” he wrote — can appear harsh, and the paper’s protection of politicians exacting. But the difficulty actually began round Christmas final 12 months.

The Marion metropolis administrator was fired in December for quite a lot of offenses, one in all which concerned exhibiting different metropolis staff {a photograph} of a scantily-clad native businesswoman from years earlier than. The City Council principally debated the firing in non-public periods, and it voted 3 to 2 to fireside the administrator. Around the identical time, the chief of police and his deputy resigned — in line with The Record — as a result of the town hadn’t moved quick sufficient to self-discipline the administrator.

The Record objected to the non-public periods, and have become embroiled in disagreements in regards to the state’s open conferences regulation.

But what many locals keep in mind most is that The Record revealed the title of the lady and her day spa enterprise quite a lot of occasions. The enterprise closed this month, and the lady and her husband have blamed the paper.

For the previous 12 months, the newspaper lined varied disputes on the City Council, principally between David Mayfield, the mayor, and Ruth Herbel, the councilwoman whose residence was searched. Mr. Mayfield has accused Ms. Herbel of leaking data to The Record, which he frequently criticizes on Facebook. Mr. Meyer responds to Mr. Mayfield on the social media website, usually in private language. Mr. Mayfield didn’t reply to requests to talk for this text.

“In a small town, everyone knows one another, and it is easier to irritate one another when you have that familiarity,” stated Matt Stiles, the town administrator in close by Hillsboro, a part of Marion County.

Then got here the reporting shortly earlier than the raid.

The Record obtained ideas that Gideon Cody, the lately employed police chief, had left his final job with the Kansas City Police Department below cloudy circumstances, Mr. Meyer stated. The Record requested Mr. Cody in regards to the circumstances of his departure, however it in the end couldn’t substantiate the ideas and didn’t publish an article about them.

The Kansas City Star has since reported that Mr. Cody was accused of sexist and insulting feedback whereas on the Kansas City Police Department, and left whereas that was below investigation.

In early August, an area businesswoman, Keri Newell, had Mr. Cody take away Mr. Meyer and a Record reporter from her espresso store, which was internet hosting a neighborhood occasion with the county’s congressman.

Shortly after, the paper obtained a doc indicating that Ms. Newell, who was making use of for a liquor license, had been convicted of driving below the affect. The paper researched extra about Ms. Newell however didn’t publish an article about her. At a City Council assembly final week, nonetheless, Ms. Newell accused the paper of passing the details about her conviction to Ms. Herbel. Mr. Meyer stated the paper did no such factor.

Ms. Herbel’s lawyer, Drew Goodwin, stated the councilwoman had independently obtained the identical data. “My client did not commit any crimes, and it is abundantly clear she did not commit any crimes,” he stated.

Two days after the City Council assembly, Mr. Cody obtained a warrant to go looking two houses and a enterprise, partaking all 5 of the town’s officers and two sheriffs within the searches.

Mr. Cody, who has defended the raid, hung up when contacted for this text.

Jeremiah Lange, the pastor at Marion Presbyterian Church, stated all of it added as much as heightened tensions between a number of officers and the paper.

“I think there’s been this pot boiling on the stove for a number of years,” he stated. “I can’t say if the City Council bumped the gas, or if Eric bumped the gas, or if the police bumped the gas. But the gas got bumped and turned on to high.”

Mr. Lange despatched a letter to his congregation this previous week urging everyone, together with himself, to “drop their stones” and “refrain from condemnation.”

But that appears unlikely to occur. The Kansas Bureau of Investigation has taken over the investigation from the Marion Police Department. Lawyers for each the paper and the councilwoman stated they deliberate to file lawsuits towards the town, although their gadgets had been returned.

Mr. Meyer stated if his protection adjustments in any respect, it could be solely to dig into issues extra. “We may have found a few topics that we want to investigate further as a result of this,” he stated.

Mr. Carlson, the grocery retailer proprietor, stated Mr. Meyer was a pot-stirrer who was typically proper and typically fallacious.

But principally, Mr. Carlson lamented what had occurred to his small neighborhood. “It’s just a town divided,” he stated.

Susan C. Beachy contributed analysis.