When we think of newspapers, many think of the New York Times, Washington Post and other publications with a national reputation.  In Indiana, the state’s largest newspaper is the Indianapolis Star, but there are many smaller newspapers serving smaller communities.

It is sad that many of those smaller papers are gone.  When I think of small newspapers, my first thoughts go back to a weekly, the Loogootee Tribune.  My parents were both from the area around Loogootee and my dad subscribed to The Tribune.  It came in the mail to our Indianapolis home every week.

A weekly small town newspaper does report on the police blotter, the city council, but also focuses on smaller items about local people.  I recall my uncle, who grew up in Loogootee but lived in Arizona at the time, writing a long letter to The Tribune, and it was printed in its entirety.

I was saddened when the Loogootee Tribune published its last edition a couple of years ago.  When a newspaper like that, which began publishing just after the Civil War, is gone, a part of the local culture goes with it.

That’s when I was thinking when following a police raid on a small weekly newspaper, the Marion County Record, in rural Kansas.  Local police raided the newspaper office and took office records and cell phone data from at least one reporter.

You can read more about it from the Associated Press at this link.

There is much debate about whether this police raid was legal and that is still being sorted out.

What I fear is the future of a newspaper like the weekly Marion County Record.  It is hard enough to do business in the current news business climate.  Police raids like this just make things much harder.

So, to the Marion County Record, good luck in keeping your business afloat as you deal with the legalities of the police raid.  America needs news outlets like yours.