Small-town newspapers are vanishing from the American landscape, crushed by economic pressures from online media and corporate consolidation. In some cases, governments have piled on, seeking to sink or undermine the papers that remain. Those papers should be able to rely on courts to protect them from government abuses. On Aug. 11, the police in that central Kansas town of 2,000 brazenly raided the office of the weekly Marion County Record and the home of its publisher. Mr. Meyer says Mr. Cody had threatened to sue the paper.

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Persons: Marion, Kan, Laura Viar’s, Eric Meyer, Gideon Cody, Meyer, Cody Organizations: Marion County Record, Marion police, NPR, Kansas City Police Department, Mr Locations: Kansas