Seized Illustrates Ongoing Attack Against the Media and 1st Amendment

With the arrests of two journalists this past weekend for simply doing their jobs and reporting the news, freedom of speech and protection of journalists under the 1st Amendment of the Constitution is under attack.  For those with selective amnesia, The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees fundamental freedoms of religion, speech, press, assembly, and petition. It prohibits Congress from establishing a religion or restricting free exercise, while protecting diverse viewpoints, including unpopular or offensive speech, from government censorship. Limitations exist for specific, narrow categories like obscenity, defamation, and fighting words. Having said that, this isn’t the first time this attack of the media has occurred and it apparently hasn’t been the last.

On August 11, 2023 in Marian Kansas, Marian police seized computers, cell phones, hard drives, and documents in a file server from the Marion County Record newspaper.

They also raided homes from Record editor, Eric Meyer, and with the death of its 98-year-old co-owner (his Mome), a fierce debate ignites about the abuse of power, journalistic ethics, local journalism, and the United States Constitution.

With most of their equipment seized Marion County Record staff worked around the clock to published the next issue on time.  There records may have been seized, but they refused to not be silenced

In politically turbulent times, like lightning in a bottle, director Sharon Liese fantabulously captures the story of the Marion County Record raid in a perfectly illustrative microcosm of the moment.

The specificity of this story, its lively and distinctive players, its  ethical and democratic consequences make not only for a gripping watch, sobering experience amidst an onslaught of state overreach, press suppression, and threats to journalism as we know it.

Audiences will walk away wondering our “land of the free” will ever rebound from the gross negligence of power being woefully and ignorantly brandished from local, state and national officials.

I, for one, am holding out hope that the media will continue to be the looking glass for humanity that is the promise stated in the Pledge of Allegiance – “with liberty and justice for all