I’ve been following the bizarre story about the newspaper in Marion, Kansas that had its equipment seized and the owners’ home searched in a very sussy raid. Serious police state vibes.

Found out the Marion County Record just got its equipment back. In the meantime, they managed to get their issue out, staying up into the wee hours on old equipment the cops missed. I am so proud of them.

The man’s 98-year-old mother died from the stress of the situation and still, they got the paper out. I remember that ethic. Get the paper out, no matter what.

It was so surreal watching that report from TV station KSHB 41 in the link above. Small town folks like the ones I knew. Scenes from the office. Peg board, contest award plaques on the wall, the label machine, the newspaper rack out front.

The memories came flooding back. The thought that something like that could have happened to us never occurred to me. I had a couple of police departments get mad at the newspapers where I worked, but it was mostly a matter of cops not wanting to give us the police report.

The most galling thing about that was I didn’t really care about the report. I kinda thought it was bullshit. I knew cops wrote what they wanted, not what happened. But I had to fill that space on page 2 and the readers liked it.

I hated spending valuable time arguing with them when I had front page news to worry about. It was like pulling teeth some weeks. One department refused to give us a report for years (they were mad at us over an embarrassing report years before about a guy having sex with chickens).

I didn’t have time to fight with them. I was up to my ass in alligators when I was there, but the editor who came after me went to the Attorney General and forced them to follow the open records law.

It’s pretty clear to me that law enforcement and in fact all government, only gave a damn about the First Amendment when “don’t pick a fight with the guy who buys ink by the barrel” was still a rule of thumb.

I knew the power of the press was slipping when the state troopers started ditching me after accident scenes and making me use the biggest zoom lens I had. Also galling because I hated covering wrecks, but the boss said…

When I started in the business, they let me inside the yellow tape, just like Fire and EMS.

By the time I quit journalism, the lack of respect from law enforcement was palpable. I have a lot of respect for those folks in Marion, Kansas. We need more journalists with that spirit. And we need to find a way to make sure they stay in business.