Thunderstorms, some heavy during the morning hours, then skies turning partly cloudy during the afternoon. High around 85F. Winds SSE at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 100%. 1 to 2 inches of rain expected..
Tonight
A few clouds. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 68F. Winds SSE at 10 to 15 mph.
What happened late last week in Marion County is so hard to believe that I find myself trying to find a reason to not believe it.
The cops raided the office of the local newspaper, as well as the home of the newspaper publisher, carting away computers and cell phones needed to put out the paper. They did so because a local businesswoman complained to them about the questions the newspaper was asking about her. It’s probably relevant to mention that the newspaper had also been poking around about the police chief, too.
This is a story that my dad – who spent his adult life fighting for press freedom in Latin America – would know quite well. It’s the stuff of a Third World country, a banana republic, a place where the rich and powerful use the army to subvert elections and the cops to manipulate the court system. Yet it’s happening here. In America. In my home state. Just down the road.
The part that’s hardest to believe is that the cops actually got a judge in America to sign a search warrant to conduct their raid. Usually, our country’s system of justice is well-enough grounded in law to avoid this sort of sham.
There is, in fact, a federal law that protects journalists from this sort of intimidation, for all the reasons you can probably imagine. Journalists have to be able to ask difficult questions and hold the powerful to account, without fear of getting tossed in jail, or else our system of government collapses. If journalism cannot function, then people can’t get independent information about the government and their communities, and then they cannot make informed choices. Our entire system of government is based on the notion that people are informed enough to govern themselves.
In this case, the newspaper didn’t even publish a story. It just asked questions. Those questions were about a restaurant owner who, according to a tipster, had a DUI on her record that should have prevented her from having a liquor license. Doesn’t matter who the tipster is, and what his or her motive was. Doesn’t even matter how the newspaper went about looking into that issue. For that matter, it doesn’t even matter if it’s true.
The newspaper simply has to be able to ask those questions. And the cops, the prosecutor and – for the love of John Marshall – the judge, simply have to know that.
Marion is about an hour south of Manhattan. For the sake of discussion, let’s just try to bring it closer to home. Let’s say I got a tip about, oh, I dunno, Julie Haynes, a restauranteur. Let’s further assume that The Mercury’s reporting on the police department’s budget increase had really angered Brian Peete, the head of the RCPD. And let’s assume that we made Barry Wilkerson, the prosecutor, mad by running the name of a victim in the paper. All of these things have, in fact, happened over the years. Let’s further assume that one of the district court judges was mad at me for some other reason – maybe I didn’t give his kid enough playing time on the 10-and-under baseball team I coached.
So the cops convince the judge to grant a warrant and so they march into the office at 5th and Osage and cart out the computers that we need to put out the paper.
I guarantee you that we’d fight like hell, and we’d find a way to publish, and we’d find a way to overturn whatever mockery of a travesty of a sham process they used to do that.
Thing is, I can’t imagine any of the people I mentioned doing that. Fortunately, even if they did, I can’t imagine our system allowing it to stand. That’s where we are right now, just an hour south. It cannot stand. Period.
