A rural Kansas county agreed to pay a little more than $3 million and apologize over a law enforcement raid on a small-town weekly newspaper in August 2023 that sparked an outcry over press freedom, according to the Associated Press article that appeared in the Wisconsin State Journal on Nov. 12, 2025.
Marion County was among multiple defendants in five federal lawsuits filed by the Marion County Record’s parent company, the paper’s publisher, newspaper employees, a former Marion City Council member whose home also was raided, and the estate of the publisher’s 98-year-old mother, the paper’s co-owner. An attorney for the newspaper, Bernie Rhodes, released a copy of the five-page signed agreement Tuesday.
Eric Meyer, the paper’s editor and publisher, said he hopes the size of the payment is large enough to discourage similar actions against news organizations in the future. Legal claims against the city and city officials have not been settled, and Meyer said he believes they will face a larger judgment though he doesn’t expect resolution for some time.
“The goal isn’t to get the money. The money is symbolic,” Meyer said. “The press has basically been under assault.”
