On August 11, 2023, the Marion County Record was raided by the local police department.

Officers seized desktops, cellphones, and work materials in both the newspaper’s office and publisher Eric Meyer’s private home. The reasoning came down to the Record’s method of verifying a single unpublished story, using public police data, which the police chief believed was confidential. It wasn’t. The Record committed no crime. But the Marion County Police came in anyway. Meyer’s 98-year-old mother died, possibly from the shock.

This made national news. It was a historic overstep of First Amendment rights, and backlash was swift. Federal lawsuits were filed. Marion County paid out a $3 million settlement in 2025. Former Marion Police Chief Gideon Cody, who ordered the raid on the Record, now faces a felony obstruction charge. His court date is this coming Monday.

When we stopped by the Marion County Record, based in eastern Kansas, just about three years to the day after the raid, the newsroom was abuzz putting together this week’s issue. Meyer presided from behind a commanding desk, fielding stories dropped in his basket for editing.

“I still edit on paper,” Meyer said, rifling through a short stack of copy. “My reporters are late this week,” he added with a chuckle.

In the wake of the raid and the legal circus that followed, the Record has remained a dedicated weekly paper for Marion County, but its readership has ballooned.

“Marion is something like the 122nd largest city in Kansas. We're in the 57th largest county. Right after the raid, we had the eighth largest paid circulation in the state,” Meyer said. The bubble has subsided a bit, but the Record continues to grow – circulation revenue for 2026 is up 88% over last year. This is partly due to raised rates, but also because of a national audience that keeps coming back.

“We keep getting these notes from people who subscribed during the raid to show support,” Meyer said. “They say ‘we used to have a newspaper in our town, and I used to love reading it. We don't have it anymore. But I've decided to adopt your town.’”

Local readers have been slower to come back around. Meyer described the “I don’t want to make waves” people who balked at the Record’s hard-hitting coverage leading up to the raid as the same readers who still go after the paper’s reputation today. Before the raid, the Record made a point of holding local officials accountable, as the news is meant to do, even investigating the police chief who ordered the raid. Local smalltown officials did not respond well. On Meyer’s office wall, a printed quote from the mayor, posted on Facebook, accuses journalists of being America’s greatest enemies. His wife posted similar remarks this month.

Faced with these two camps of readers, Meyer has a challenging paper to lay out. Last week, the top story went to the new fire chief, while lawsuit coverage went below the fold.

“It’s not that we've been trying to encourage people to excoriate each other, but we want to get them engaged,” Meyer said. That’s what smalltown journalism comes down to, he concluded – writing stories that will not only interest readers, but also mobilize them.

This is something he fears we’re losing in the internet age. “It’s the cocooning, and the fact that we want to be in control of everything, and we don't want to engage, and we don't want to get ourselves out in front of things.” The Record has routinely dared to engage, even without equipment, as they did the week after the raid.

“We had to assemble a network out of old Windows XP computers that were in our junk room so that we could produce something,” Meyer recalled. But the August 16, 2023, issue came out, beginning an investigative series that has won the paper prestigious awards. The Record is resolved to continue its watchdog role, while covering the potholes and personalities that locals care about.

For now, the paper has the means to do it. Between the settlements and Meyer’s mother’s estate, there’s enough to keep the Record going for the foreseeable future, though Meyer himself does not take a salary. The challenge is finding the next people to run it.

“Frankly, I would practically give it away to somebody,” he said. “Somebody who falls in love with it and wants to work hard. They’ll have to love burgers; that’s the only restaurant in town.”

Meyer says it’s that love that comes first.

“If you want to be good at this, you've got to care about the community,” he said. “And people will start to care about you.”