Study finds Marion County Record raid created 'shared press distress' among fellow journalists
In wake of police raid, journalists feared they could be next, reporting on law enforcement might suffer is such actions were allowed
University of Kansas
LAWRENCE — When police raided a newspaper in the small town of Marion in 2023, they made international headlines as computers and phones were seized in an apparent attack on press freedom. New research from the University of Kansas has found the incident sparked “shared press distress” among fellow journalists, who feared they could be next.
Journalists are no strangers to secondary trauma, often covering fires, fatalities, natural disasters and war. Interviews with Kansas journalists after the raid of the Marion County Record and subsequent death of the publisher’s 98-year-old mother when police also raided her home revealed they were distressed by seeing their fellow journalists raided.
“The idea of shared press distress came from the reporters. We didn’t go in with the idea,” said study co-author Stephen Wolgast, Knight Chair in Audience and Community Engagement for News and professor of journalism at KU. “The interviews were done about six months after the raid and about six months before the prosecutor’s report was released. At that time, people were still upset and unsure about what it all meant.”
To learn more about what the raid meant to other journalists, Wolgast and Nick Mathews of the University of Missouri conducted in-depth interviews with 19 working Kansas journalists. The study was published in the Journal of Communication Inquiry.
The interviews revealed both a practical and emotional response to the incident. Practically speaking, many of the reporters said they wondered how they could continue to cover local governments and hold those in power accountable.
“There were some who said they were not concerned. But there were also some who said, ‘I can’t afford the legal expenses if this happens to me,’” Wolgast said. “One was worried that if the raids were deemed OK, what’s to stop the police from doing the same thing to their newsroom?”
Among the most concerning findings, the authors wrote, is that several respondents reported considering they might have to alter their coverage. While some respondents reported having a good relationship with local law enforcement, others said they were forced to consider if they should temper their coverage or if they could be critical of local leaders.
“You hate to say you’re going to temper your coverage, but maybe not put it all out there, kind of like we used to,” one respondent said.
Ultimately, respondents said they continued their coverage, but several reported uncertainty about what might result from doing so.
The emotional toll was reflected as several respondents said they were deeply concerned about the well-being of a fellow journalist and small-town publisher. The idea of secondary or vicarious trauma for journalists is well established in research, but Wolgast and Mathews identified distress among journalists for colleagues who experienced a traumatic event in the line of work and one who lost a family member after the stress of the raid.
“They were feeling, not for a person they covered in a story about a car accident or whose house burned down, but for a fellow journalist whose office and home was raided,” Wolgast said.
Respondents reported feeling shock, disbelief, outrage and disgust. One encapsulated the uncertainty and trepidation by saying, “If they can get away with this, it’ll be open season on all of us.”
The incident also underscored what many journalists feared: that declining trust in the news media and the resulting hostility had instigated a violation of norms regarding freedom of the press. However, it didn’t happen in an abstract, far-off locale; it happened close to home.
“This thing doesn’t really happen in America much nowadays,” one journalist said of the raid, “but with the current political landscape and just people's general attitude and valuing of news, it doesn’t surprise me that this happened.”
The raid on the Marion County Record ultimately drew international headlines and condemnation, and several lawsuits regarding the incident are advancing through the courts. Marion County apologized for its part in the raid and agreed to pay about $3 million in damages last week in one of the suits.
But the fact that it happened and the journalists’ responses show that such attacks on the press are not only possible, they can have lasting effects on journalists beyond those directly involved in the case, the researchers said. In the big picture, that can negatively influence journalism, especially in small towns and in communities that are becoming news deserts.
“If journalists can’t be critical, it’s the public that loses out,” Wolgast said. “Every town has a limited budget, and knowing where it goes and how it is being used is important. Journalists need to be able to speak freely.”
Journal
Journal of Communication Inquiry
Method of Research
Survey
Subject of Research
People
Article Title
"Shared Press Distress" and the Police Raid on a Newspaper
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