Across the region you can hear the piercing tones of the school bell break through the summer wind. Or that might be the groans from the children forced to leave their summer activities and strap on their book bags and charge up their laptops as they head back to school for another year.
However, class is also in session in a small town in Marion, Kansas, just north of Wichita. The whole country is invited to this master class on how not to deal with a small town newspaper. The details are still pouring out as the national press has begun to shine an intense spotlight on a very small-town cluster. But we know that the Marion County Record, which bears a lot of similarities to this Platte County Landmark, was raided by local police. We also know that the paper had been confirming allegations surrounding a local business person’s DUI. We also know that the co-owner of the newspaper passed away shortly after the raid on the newspaper and on the home she shared with her son, who is the newspaper publisher. She was 98.
Those are facts and a small town newspaper deals in facts (and sometimes handsome, quippy columnists.) We also know that the town’s new police chief has ties to the Kansas City area after retiring from the KCPD after two decades.
From there, the story gets wilder and wilder. A police raid that seizes an entire newspaper’s ability to print a newspaper is beyond rare. Mostly because it is forbidden by the United States Constitution. The police took computers, file servers, cell phones, and basically anything connected with publishing a newspaper. The motive of the raid appears to be less based in fact and more based in payback for investigation of the police chief and local politicians by the newspaper.
As you might imagine, the details of the case have been quite the buzz around our own newspaper just a few miles away. While I don’t think anyone would mistake The Landmark or The Record for The New York Times, the contributions of small town newspapers like ours are, in many respects, even more critical to the DNA of a functioning democracy. Coverage of the local police chief or the school board member or a mayor who likes to bid jobs to their cousin is the backbone of communities. And newspapers like ours are only shining a light on things that are already there. We can’t just come out and say the mayor of Platte City has purple hair if they do not, in fact, have purple hair.
The most concerning thing, however, is that if the mayor doesn’t like the mere speculation and the poking around the purple hair question, it seems that the polarity in our community makes it easier and easier to attack the fourth estate in the most aggressive attacks to date.
It used to be if you didn’t like coverage in The Landmark, you just didn’t renew your subscription. Now you might be able to wield your army to attack. The metaphor isn’t that far off from what happened in Marion, Kansas.
But here’s the good news… Reports of the death of small town newspapers have been grossly exaggerated. Oh, sure, nobody is getting rich running a small newspaper. But the aggressive small newspapers aren’t going away. And there are more barrels of ink getting ready to shine a light on a-hole mayors and politicians, and cops, and elected officials. You see, it does take education to run a small town newspaper. So the ones who should be heading back to school are the officials who have something to hide. Class is in session.
(Get more from Chris Kamler on Twitter, where he is @TheFakeNed)