Rural Kansas publisher recounts newsroom raid: ‘Small-town politics at its worst’
First Amendment advocate points to a law that should have come in play
A newspaper in a Kansas town with a population of fewer than 2,000 gained national attention in the summer following a police raid.
Two months later, Marion County Record Publisher Eric Meyer reflected on the day and its aftermath, characterizing what happened as “small-town politics at its worst.”
Meanwhile, First Amendment advocates expressed their concerns for journalists facing similar situations.
The entire police force in Marion, Kansas, searched the newsroom, the publisher’s home where he lived with his 98-year-old mother — who died two days after — and the vice mayor’s residence.
These actions were based on allegations that the newspaper had engaged in identity theft of a local restaurant owner and obtained their information illegally, claims the newspaper denied.
“They were just bullying us,” Meyer said. “And they picked on the wrong place to bully.”
The raid on Aug. 11 was led by former Police Chief Gideon Cody who resigned after he was suspended earlier this month.
According to Meyer, the police confiscated most of the newsroom’s computers, file servers and his and the reporters’ cell phones.
Among the items seized, Meyer said, was a page that had all the usernames and passwords of one of his reporters for all their personal and business accounts.
They also found a folder containing information about the police chief that had been maintained by a reporter.
One aspect Meyer thought gained this incident national attention was the fact that his mother, Joan, died that weekend due to a heart attack.
The coroner's report suggested that the stress induced by the raid contributed to her death, according to Meyer.
The newspaper publisher said his mother would have been proud, as she passed away defending the First Amendment and the Fourth Amendment, which protects press freedom and prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures.
“Several times I said (to the police), you're going to make national and international headlines by the end of the night,” he said. “And they were laughing, they thought that who would care (about) some stupid little newspaper in Kansas? They were wrong.”
Interim Police Chief Zach Hudlin didn’t respond to a request for comments. Cody couldn’t be reached.
Claire Regan, the president of the Society of Professional Journalists at the time, said the seizure made it impossible for the paper to publish, but The Record was able to publish its print edition nonetheless.
“SEIZED ... but not silenced,” read the paper’s front-page headline.
“We were outraged and caught off guard like most journalists and most Americans were seeing such an egregious attack on a newsroom,” said the former SPJ president, whose organization allocated $20,000 of its legal fund to help The Record in its defense.
The Record isn’t alone.
The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker has reported 97 incidents against journalists so far this year, including assaults, arrests, equipment searches or seizures, and subpoenas/legal orders.
The numbers were 137 and 321 in the two prior years, respectively.
Freedom of the Press Foundation Advocacy Director Seth Stern said while full-scale raids like the one in Kansas are rare, smaller-scale incidents occur more frequently.
He pointed to the Privacy Protection Act of 1980, which should have been applicable in the Kansas case. The law prohibits searches and seizures from people who disseminate information to the public.
“Except when the journalist is suspected of committing a crime, but the crime can’t be newsgathering,” Stern said.
The challenge, as Stern explained, is that both police and judges are often unaware of the PPA due to its age, being 43 years old.
In the Kansas case, the warrant was signed by a magistrate judge, a position that doesn’t require a legal background similar to justices of the peace.
“These are judges who don’t even have to have gone to law school in order to sit on the bench,” Stern said. “In all likelihood, they have not heard of the PPA.”
This particular judge, Laura Viar, was an attorney, however.
Stern said it’s incumbent upon law enforcement to explain in a warrant application if the case pertains to a journalist or a newsroom.
But like every warrant process, the suspect listed in it doesn’t get a chance to respond and assert their own rights.
Stern said a subpoena process is preferable, as it would enable newsrooms to present their case.
‘Small-town politics at its worst?’
Asked if that characterization of what happened was accurate, Meyer agreed. The Marion County Record, founded in 1869, has a history of aggressive reporting on local government issues.
The paper ran an exposé in 2004 about the town’s use of a contaminated reservoir for drinking water, despite a ban on the water because of toxicity concerns. The administrator behind that is the current mayor.
Despite unwavering support from the journalism community and the rise in subscriptions that made it the eighth largest in the state, Meyer said it’s another story within the town.
He said Marion has been “a very top-down” organization for the past 20 years.
“We don’t discuss things in public,” he said. “We’ve eliminated the comment portion of the city council meeting. They can’t comment until after the city council has acted on things.”
Meyer added: “If you own a gas station in this town and you go against the mayor, you’re not doing any business, you know they’re going to boycott you.” He speculated the raid was a result of the paper’s reporting.
Marion Mayor David Mayfield didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Public officials and local elites have historically found ways to retaliate against newspapers such as revoking public notice contracts, filing libel lawsuits, vandalism at a reporter’s home and launching harassment campaigns.
Meyer said the decline in robust local government coverage in many small communities can be attributed to the influence that wealthy individuals wield over newspapers, often having close ties with officials.
“It’s typical of bigger towns too but you’re a little more able to address it because you don’t have to go to lunch with the same people that you’re reporting on,” he said. “You don’t have to show up at a restaurant and there sits the mayor next to you.”
A reporter from Marion County Record filed a federal lawsuit against the former police chief, alleging violations of the First Amendment and the Fourth Amendment.
Meyer said he will sue, too.