98-year-old newspaper owner stands up to bullies

India lands a space craft on the moon; how did I miss that bit of news

By Ken Tingley

The video is a vivid reminder that journalists, reporters and editors are people just like anyone else.

Often, they are passionate people just trying to do a job, just trying to do the right thing.

The video was released by a weekly newspaper in Kansas - the Marion County Record - and shows its 98-year-old co-owner, Joan Meyer, demanding police leave her home as they searched for computer devices and newspaper records.

While leaning on a walker, Meyer delivers a stream of demands to the six police officers in her home. She is the epitome of feisty. If you have not seen it, you should watch it now.

The Marion County Record case is important and one that should concern you. After a complaint from a local businesswoman that the newspaper had illegally gotten records on her drunk driving arrest, the local sheriff got a search warrant and confiscated the newspaper’s computer equipment and records and led to the confrontation with Joan Meyer. It effectively shut down the newspaper’s operation.

It was later determined the search warrant should not have been issued.

The newspaper never had receive tips that the business woman was driving without a license, but it never printed anything.

The Privacy Protection Act of 1980 protects journalists and newsrooms from search by government officials.

That was ignored in this case.

It’s a reminder of what happens when local newspapers are diminished and don’t have the resources to fight back.

But let’s return to the video for a second.

Joan Meyer had spent 60 years in her community as a reporter, columnist, editor, publisher and then co-owner. Her son is the publisher today.

Her anger did not diminish in the 24 hours after the search.

“She said over and over again, ‘Where are all the good people to put a stop to this?’” her son Eric Meyer said. “She felt like, how can you go through your entire life and then have something that you spent 50 years of your life doing just kind of trampled on like it’s meaningless?”

We all should be concerned about that.

Eric Meyer said his mother died in mid-sentence at around 1:30 p.m. the next day.

The coroner believed the stress of the search was the cause.

After Joan Meyer’s death, Marion County’s top prosecutor withdrew the search warrant and the seized materials were returned to the newspaper. The prosecutor ruled there was insufficient evidence for the searches.

The sheriff said at the time he believed there was evidence a reporter had received information illegally. The reporter had received information from a source and was checking on its legitimacy. That’s what newspapers and journalists do daily.

And that’s why that work needs to be revered and protected by all of us.

“Such protections are necessary,” The Columbian in Vancouver, Wash. wrote in an editorial this week. “With newspapers frequently closing in rural areas, many communities are left as news deserts bereft of watchdogs keeping an eye on local officials. And with increasing numbers of Americans open to the prospect of totalitarianism, government control of information is a growing possibility.”

What was heartening to see was that this intrusion into newspapers was quickly condemned and became a national story.

We are already seeing some of this locally with police departments failing to given anything more than the basic details on arrests without answering questions from the local media.

As an editor at a newspaper for more than 30 years, I speak first hand that newspapers are careful about what information they print and what they do not. Frequently, newspapers do not print information because they cannot confirm its legitimacy.

We take that very seriously.

One of the realities of the current journalism landscape is that newspapers have fewer and fewer legal resources.

In 2016, The Post-Star took the rare action of suing the city of Glens Falls because it refused to release a report it had done on the firing of an employee even after the Committee on Open Government had ruled it was public information.

The newspaper filed a freedom of information request that was denied. It appealed the decision and it was denied by the city again. So we sued and took advantage of a new law that allowed us to get our legal expenses paid if we won. This case was about the importance of transparency in government. It was the principle.

We won the lawsuit and the city had to pay our legal fees.

It was a relief for me because I knew the legal expenses would be a hardship for the newspaper.

Over the years, we ran into plenty of bullies in government and law enforcement.

That’s what we’re seeing out in Kansas.

And it won’t be the last time.

Getting it right

Memory is a tricky thing. In my column earlier this week about my grandmother’s letter about the 1955 flood in Connecticut, I wrote that my cousin Dawn had passed on the letter to me. That’s what I remembered.

But Dawn’s brother Kevin wrote on Facebook he was the one who showed me the letter.  At least I got the family right. Either way, I’m glad he did.

Back to the moon

As someone who grew up watching the space race in the 1960s, I was shocked to learn that both Russia and India were attempting moon landings this week with unmanned spacecraft. For some reason, that news never reached me.

While Russia’s mission was aborted, India’s landing on the South Pole of the moon was successful. It is significant because of theories that the South Pole might be have a water source that could support future colonies there.

There is a TV series on Apple TV called “For all Mankind.” The premise is what might have happened if the space race had continued in the years after the Apollo missions were abandoned.

It’s a fascinating alternative history - a little corny at times with the astronauts terrible at following orders - but it explains the value of finding a water source on the moon.

Radio interview

I sat down with Mike Morgan of Adirondack Broadcasting a couple weeks ago to talk about my new book “The Last American Editor, Vol. 2” and newspapers in general.

Its all part of his Community Issues show that runs early on Sunday mornings.

You might want to check it out.