Poking Our Heads Above The Parapet

One of the many hard-earned lessons we’ve learned in this business is that people are perfectly happy urging someone else (us) to leave the safety of the trench and tackle a difficult subject they won’t.

This dovetails neatly into another hard-learned lesson: that the person who leaves said trench (us) is usually the first trooper to take a round right in the noggin.

And so we come to two recent invitations by a reading public interested in seeing us leave the trench for a speculative foray into No Man’s Land – having us address the latest round of indictments against a Mob Boss Politician and a police raid on a small town newspaper in Kansas.

Despite being cursed with a generally pugnacious demeanor and having made lip contact with a legendary Carboniferous limestone at Castle Blarney, we are watching those stories develop and Biden our tongue as El Naranja Grande browbeat public servants like Bogie battering the mess boys in The Caine Mutiny.

Listening to the now-infamous tape of the former Leader of the Free World berating state officials for his election defeat and threatening them with public reprisal we’re left thinking: Sheesh, what a putz.

As for the Georgia state officials on the other end of the “11,780 votes” call (we imagined them thinking: “Dayum, I’d sure like to take a poke at this city boy“) we applaud them for standing up to naked intimidation and bluster by a man unqualified to run the omelette bar at Mar a Lago much less the country.

Which brings us to another story making headlines – this time in Kansas – but also inspiring interest and entreaties for us to say something here at home – police execution of a search warrant on a small town newspaper in Marion, KS.

Police seized computers and other equipment from the Marion County Record newsroom as well as the personal homes of some of the paper’s staffers on Friday after the publication began to dig into the past record of a newly-arrived city police chief and published statements made by a local restaurateur and political supporter about her past DUI conviction and the fact that she continued to drive in spite of it.

Apparently a judge, prosecutor and the police chief agreed that an investigation of the paper was justified – naming the restauranteur as the complainant – with the town’s police force dispatched to seize the paper’s computers and other gear, alleging that reporters had illegally obtained and used personal information about the business owner.

The raids were widely condemned as a blatant violation of the U.S. Constitution’s protection for a free press. Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly called them “concerning.” An attorney for the newspaper deemed the searches and seizures illegal and said the police department’s action “offends the constitutional protections the founding fathers gave the free press.”

The Record experienced widespread, nationwide support and donations of equipment and money to do its work over the weekend. Some local residents, however, argued that the paper was nothing more than a local “gossip rag” adopting an aggressive stance that had pushed out business and painted a negative picture of the town of about 1,900 residents.

Co-owner/publisher Eric Meyer said he believes the newspaper’s coverage of local politics and Police Chief Gideon Cody’s past record were clearly behind the raids. The paper was apparently looking into the newly hired chief’s past as a Kansas City, Missouri, police captain when the raids were conducted.

Officials appeared unprepared for the backlash, as involved agencies either refused to comment Monday or took pains to acknowledge the constitutional right to a free press while defending the ability of police to investigate journalists.

On Monday, Cody referred questions about the raids to the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, saying it was leading the investigation. That agency, in turn, refused to say it had taken over the investigation, referring instead to a statement saying it had merely “joined” the investigation.

Small town politics run amok or conscious effort to silence the local press?

We guess we’ll just have to see. One thing is certain – “perfect” little phone calls and small town news have a way of blowing up into far bigger issues with national consequences.

And that’s as far out of the trench as we’re willing to go. Today.