From an interview with Eric Meyer, owner and publisher of the Marion County Record:
"So the backstory that we haven't told, because we don't wanna get in trouble, is that we've been investigating the police chief [Gideon Cody]. When he was named Chief just two months ago, we got an outpouring of calls from his former co-workers making a wide array of allegations against him..." https://thehandbasket.substack.com/p/a-conversation-with-the-newspaper
"Legal experts contacted by the Record termed the raid unheard of in America and reminiscent of what occurs in totalitarian regimes and the Third World.
"The raid is one of several recent cases of local authorities taking aggressive actions against #news organizations...
When #journalists are suspected of committing crimes as part of news gathering, the government’s option is to serve a subpoena, which can be challenged in court before it is enforced.
"A search warrant that cleared the way for the raid of a Kansas newspaper last Friday has been withdrawn, KSHB 41 I-Team reporter Jessica McMaster learned late Wednesday morning.
"The Kansas magistrate judge who authorized a police raid of the Marion County Record newsroom over its probe into a local restaurateur’s drunken-driving record has her own hidden history of driving under the influence.
Photographs of the Marion County Record #newspaper office that was illegally raided by police.
"The fall of local #journalism has been precipitous — a source of heartbreak and concern for many. I’ve spent two years photographing newspaper offices across my home state of Kansas. In #Marion, these concerns — about community, division, #democracy and #FirstAmendment rights — have collided." #GiftArticle https://wapo.st/45c7Jk4
@ZhiZhu This event dramatically underscores how important it is for there to be observers of powerful people, whether on the national stage, or in a tiny town.
"The Aug. 11 police raid sparked outrage among #FirstAmendment advocates and #news organizations across the nation. Officers seized computers, phones and other records during the search, a virtually unprecedented event in recent American history. Meyer’s home also was searched...
"Corporate journalism both failed to respond adequately to the GOP’s attacks on the press over the years and to recognize that scrutinizing policing would bring the same kind of authoritarian backlash.
"The problem... is that attacks on a free and fair press are not rare at all. Indeed, such attacks have become distressingly commonplace.
When powerful people go after #journalists and #news outlets, they go after everyone. They go after publications’ readers. They go after voters who use information reported to make decisions...
"their confrontation in April marked an escalation in long-running tensions between a group of local #journalists and the officials and community members they cover that would boil over through the summer.
"Marion Police Chief Gideon Cody enlisted the support of local & state law enforcement officials in the days before he led raids on the local #newspaper office, the publisher’s home & the home of a city councilwoman.
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