An AI-generated list of recommended reading for the summer, published by the Chicago Sun-Times, included several books that don’t exist.
Per <a href="https://www.npr.org/2025/05/20/nx-s1-5405022/fake-summer-reading-list-ai">NPR</a>, at least one edition of The Philadelphia Inquirer used the same flawed list, titled “Summer reading list for 2025.&#8221; Suggested titles included “Tidewater Dreams,” purportedly authored by Chilean American novelist Isabel Allende, which was described as her &#8220;first climate fiction novel.&#8221; Allende is a real person, but the suggested novel is not a book she or anyone else published.
Another suggestion was “The Rainmakers,” which is described as a story set in a &#8220;near-future American West where artificially induced rain has become a luxury commodity.” This faux novel was said to be written by 2025 Pulitzer Prize winner Percival Everett.
The outlet noted that only five of the 15 books suggested were real titles. 
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The Chicago Sun-Times printed a &quot;summer reading list&quot; featuring real authors but mostly made up books, generated by a freelancer using AI.
This comes two months after the newspaper cut 20% of its staff. <a href="https://t.co/TLMbDxuey0">pic.twitter.com/TLMbDxuey0</a>
&mdash; Nick Kapur (@nick_kapur) <a href="https://twitter.com/nick_kapur/status/1924999492824399991?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 21, 2025</a></blockquote>
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&#8220;We are looking into how this made it into print as we speak,&#8221; Victor Lim, marketing director for the Chicago Sun-Times&#8217; parent company, Chicago Public Media, said in a statement. He also noted that the content did not come directly from the newspaper’s staffers. 
&#8220;This is licensed content that was not created by, or approved by, the Sun-Times newsroom, but it is unacceptable for any content we provide to our readers to be inaccurate. We value our readers&#8217; trust in our reporting and take this very seriously. More info will be provided soon as we investigate.&#8221;
The article&#8217;s author, Marco Buscaglia, addressed the error, writing in an email to NPR, &#8220;Huge mistake on my part and has nothing to do with the Sun-Times. They trust that the content they purchase is accurate and I betrayed that trust. It&#8217;s on me 100 percent.&#8221;
<a href="https://get.dailywire.com/subscribe/plus/?utm_medium=website&amp;utm_source=editorial&amp;utm_campaign=memorial&amp;utm_content=editorialmemorialday" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Memorial Day Sale – Get 40% Off New DailyWire+ Annual Memberships</a>
The paper also <a href="https://chicago.suntimes.com/press-room/2025/05/20/chicago-sun-times-response-to-may-18-special-section">issued a response</a> to subscribers, noting that the person responsible for the error had been terminated and promising the mistake would not happen again. They said subscribers would not be charged for the premium edition and said more care would be put into checking for AI-generated content in the future.
“We are in a moment of great transformation in journalism and technology, and at the same time our industry continues to be besieged by business challenges. This should be a learning moment for all journalism organizations: Our work is valued — and valuable — because of the humanity behind it,” the statement said.
“At Chicago Public Media, we are proud of our credible, independent journalism, created for and by people. And part of the journalistic process is a commitment to acknowledging mistakes. It is unacceptable that this content was inaccurate, and it is equally unacceptable that we did not make it clear to readers that the section was produced outside the Sun-Times newsroom.”

Chicago Sun-Times

Chicago Sun-Times Published A.I.-Generated Summer Reading List With Books That Don’t Exist

Chicago Sun-Times Published A.I.-Generated Summer Reading List With Books That Don't Exist

Artificial Intelligence

Books

Chicago

Journalism

Legacy Media

Media

Newspaper

U.S.

Some of the few truly entertaining moments you&#8217;ll find in politics are the times when activists who are extremely ideological — the total fanatics — suddenly have to confront the reality that they&#8217;re losing. 
You&#8217;ll remember that when Donald Trump won in 2016, we saw a lot of that. HBO captured <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRFmtGwLnP4" target="_blank" rel="noopener">footage</a> of Ben Rhodes, the Obama adviser, sitting shell-shocked on a bench for several minutes when he realized that Hillary Clinton wasn&#8217;t going to be president. There was also the famous <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDYNVH0U3cs" target="_blank" rel="noopener">woman</a> screaming and howling as Trump was inaugurated, who became an instant meme. These kinds of moments are great because if you&#8217;re a sane person, it&#8217;s a win-win. Your enemies aren&#8217;t just being defeated; they&#8217;re also providing some unintended humor on the way out.
Yesterday in the state of Utah we were treated to another one of these moments. The state senate overwhelmingly <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/news/education/2024/01/25/utahs-anti-dei-bill-passes-senate/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">passed</a> a bill that will dismantle all &#8220;diversity, equity and inclusion&#8221; programs in the government as well as the public education system. As the Salt Lake Tribune reports:
<blockquote>The wide-sweeping proposal requires that diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, offices at the state’s eight public colleges and universities, specifically, be reframed. They can no longer be race- or gender-based, but instead must cater to all students as generalized student success and support centers. .. [The bill] additionally bans schools and government employers from asking job applicants for a statement about their beliefs on diversity or inclusion, and [schools and employers] could lose state funding for violating that. And all entities would be required to eliminate any training on &#8216;discriminatory practices&#8217; while replacing that with instruction on free speech from all viewpoints.</blockquote>
This is, by far, the most sweeping anti-DEI bill that&#8217;s ever been proposed in this country. And just for good measure, the Utah Senate also <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/news/politics/2024/01/25/ban-transgender-people-utahs/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">passed</a> a separate bill banning men from entering women&#8217;s restrooms. The governor has indicated he&#8217;s going to sign both of these bills, so in all likelihood, very soon they&#8217;ll become law.
For DEI race hustlers, this is their Ben Rhodes, “crazy-lady-screeching-at-the-inauguration” moment. This doesn&#8217;t just mark the rollback of their ideology in Utah, it&#8217;s also virtually certain to inspire similar bills all over the country and create a kind of domino effect. Already, states like Oklahoma, Florida and Texas have taken their own <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/how-an-order-from-oklahomas-governor-seeks-to-defund-dei-in-state-offices" target="_blank" rel="noopener">steps</a> to end DEI. And now the process looks like it&#8217;s going to accelerate.
<h4><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-1302-democrats-hold-a-funeral-for-dei-member-exclusive" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH: The Matt Walsh Show</a></h4>
Here&#8217;s the fun part. Democrats in Utah, as you might imagine, didn&#8217;t take this news very well. So they did what any mentally unbalanced, crazy person would do in this circumstance. They all dressed in black and solemnly held a funeral for DEI, because in their words, &#8220;they are hurting.&#8221; There was no casket as far as I can tell, but they did have a eulogy and a strict dress code for the occasion. Watch:
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HAPPENING NOW: Utah&#39;s Democrats are wearing all black, asking <a href="https://twitter.com/GovCox?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@GovCox</a> to veto two controversial bills dealing with DEI and bathroom access. 
They say they&#39;re in black because they are &quot;hurting&quot; that these bills are likely to pass. <a href="https://twitter.com/KSL5TV?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@KSL5TV</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/utpol?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#utpol</a> <a href="https://t.co/FzVJqjVQeT">pic.twitter.com/FzVJqjVQeT</a>
&mdash; Lindsay Aerts (@LindsayOnAir) <a href="https://twitter.com/LindsayOnAir/status/1750615549829071247?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 25, 2024</a></blockquote>
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Imagine the process of arranging something like this. Did they all get on a conference call and say, &#8220;Hey everyone, it looks like that bill that bans racial discrimination is going to pass, so we&#8217;re going to hold a funeral for DEI. Be sure to wear all black.&#8221; And then no one thought that was remotely unusual or weird in any way. All of them apparently thought that, by color coordinating, they&#8217;d lend some gravity and seriousness to the situation. But of course, they did the opposite. There is not a single living creature who saw this press conference in Utah and felt anything other than amusement and second-hand-embarrassment for everyone involved.
Actually, the more you watch this DEI funeral, the more humiliating it gets. You may have noticed that the Democrats didn&#8217;t simply coordinate their clothing. They also coordinated their positions at the press conference. All of the white guys are conspicuously located in the back. You can barely see them. The women are up front. The Utah Democrats didn&#8217;t specifically call attention to this staging, like they did with the clothing, but it&#8217;s not hard to figure out the message. They&#8217;re once again highlighting the fact that DEI means that white guys go to the back of the bus. Even the white guys who are on board with DEI are subjected to this humiliation because they&#8217;re inferior, solely by virtue of their skin color. This is a fundamental principle of DEI, and they will continue to embrace it even as the DEI scam collapses around them.
At the same time, there was one candid, slightly less choreographed moment from the Utah capitol the other day. The Salt Lake Tribune captured this image of trans activists storming the capitol, presumably because they&#8217;re upset about the other bill (the one that keeps men out of women&#8217;s bathrooms):
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Ban of transgender people from Utah’s public bathrooms passes Senate <a href="https://t.co/lOELr3cNzs">https://t.co/lOELr3cNzs</a> <a href="https://t.co/H1zXWN8way">pic.twitter.com/H1zXWN8way</a>
&mdash; Salt Lake Tribune politics (@SLTribPolitics) <a href="https://twitter.com/SLTribPolitics/status/1750605769928474643?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 25, 2024</a></blockquote>
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It&#8217;s a shot of two very angry individuals — one of them wearing a mask for some reason — holding signs that read, &#8220;Trans Joy is Power.&#8221; But if you look closely at their faces, you can&#8217;t help but notice that &#8220;trans joy&#8221; looks a lot like blind, homicidal rage. This is always the case with “trans joy.” We hear a lot about it, but nobody has ever seen anything resembling joy from any trans activist. This photo went viral for obvious reasons. For one thing, it&#8217;s like a Babylon Bee photo, except in real life. But the photo also does a great job of capturing the anger and bitterness of deranged activists who know they&#8217;re losing. They don&#8217;t have time for debates or logic or anything like that. All they can do is rage, and they know it.
We&#8217;re seeing a similar phenomenon play out in the journalism industry, or what&#8217;s left of it anyway. Faced with a very public and overwhelming rejection of everything they stand for, journalists are not pondering their failures. They aren&#8217;t wondering why everyone hates them. Instead, they&#8217;re wallowing in self-pity and frustration, just like the trans activists. 
This week, for example, the Los Angeles Times laid off more than 20% of its newsroom. This is the paper that, in just the past couple of years, has run headlines like <a href="https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-08-20/recall-candidate-larry-elder-is-a-threat-to-black-californians" target="_blank" rel="noopener">these</a>: 
<ul>
<li>&#8220;Larry Elder is the Black Face of White Supremacy. You&#8217;ve Been Warned&#8221;</li>
<li>&#8220;Mocking anti-vaxxers&#8217; COVID deaths is ghoulish, yes — but may be necessary&#8221;</li>
<li>&#8220;White drivers are polluting the air breathed by L.A.’s people of color&#8221; 
</li>
</ul>
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White drivers are polluting the air breathed by L.A.’s people of color<a href="https://t.co/1cBp2TTay6">https://t.co/1cBp2TTay6</a>
&mdash; Los Angeles Times (@latimes) <a href="https://twitter.com/latimes/status/1633840062160072707?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 9, 2023</a></blockquote>
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Apparently, we&#8217;re not talking about principled journalists holding the powerful to account. These are ghoulish activists who want to cause a race war and dance on the graves of their political enemies. And you can say — well, not everyone in the newsroom may have agreed with those headlines. But the fact is, none of them condemned any of this. None of them spoke out, or reconsidered the wisdom of working for an organization that would publish garbage like this. And we all know why that is: The staff of the LA Times was openly racist and overtly hostile to anyone they disagreed with. That showed in their &#8220;journalism,&#8221; and most of the public found it to be completely repulsive. So the paper started losing something like $40 million a year. And now the newsroom has been gutted as a result.
But in the wake of these cuts, there has not been a single LA Times employee — current or former — who has said, &#8220;Hey, maybe we shouldn&#8217;t have wished for the death of our enemies.&#8221; Not a single one, as far as I can tell, has said that it was a bad idea to publish an article accusing white people of poisoning the &#8220;people of color&#8221; in Los Angeles. In fact, the opposite has been happening. LA Times employees have been defending their coverage. 
One LA Times reporter, Sarah D. Wire, insisted the other day that the article about white drivers &#8220;polluting the air&#8221; was <a href="https://x.com/sarahdwire/status/1750241416771494153?s=20" target="_blank" rel="noopener">great journalism.</a> She wrote, &#8220;Ah yes, how dare we inform people about a USC study that found pollution in Los Angeles disproportionally impacts the communities that highways run through&#8230;&#8221; 
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Ah yes, how dare we inform people about a USC study that found pollution in Los Angeles disproportionally impacts the communities that highways run through&#8230;
Journalists&#39; job is to inform their community <a href="https://t.co/LPPVMedmZd">https://t.co/LPPVMedmZd</a>
&mdash; Sarah D. Wire (@sarahdwire) <a href="https://twitter.com/sarahdwire/status/1750241416771494153?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 24, 2024</a></blockquote>
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So she still doesn&#8217;t get it. She&#8217;s not even trying to get it. Even now, after everyone has pointed out to her that &#8220;white drivers&#8221; aren&#8217;t the only ones driving on Los Angeles&#8217; highways, Sarah D. Wire at the Los Angeles Times doesn&#8217;t see the problem with the headline. And keep in mind, this is one of the few people who wasn&#8217;t fired this week at the LA Times. This is supposedly the cream of the crop. That&#8217;s how committed this organization is to fomenting race hatred by lying to the public.
Just to be sure I wasn&#8217;t missing anything, I spent some time looking through the Twitter/X feeds of current and former LA Times employees. I wanted to see if any of them were showing any introspection whatsoever. I wanted to see, for example, if any LA Times reporters expressed regret for predicting a year ago that Twitter would implode — because you have to admit, it&#8217;s pretty ironic that the LA Times imploded, and Twitter/X is still around. But I didn&#8217;t find anything like that. Instead, the more I looked, the worse it got.
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As Chris Rufo noted, the post-layoffs <a href="https://twitter.com/realchrisrufo/status/1750208797564657820" target="_blank" rel="noopener">statement</a> from the LA Times&#8217; various &#8220;diversity caucuses&#8221; didn&#8217;t even attempt to defend their work on the basis of quality or merit or profitability. Instead, they all invoked various racial grievances: 
<blockquote>The announcement today. .. has devastating implications for Black, Latino, AAPI and other journalists of color. &#8230; If these layoffs are allowed to go through, &#8230; the Latino Caucus will lose 38 percent of its members. The Black Caucus will lose 36 percent of its members. The [AAPI] and Middle East, North Africa and South Asia caucuses will lose 34 percent of their combined membership.</blockquote>
So it&#8217;s all racial bean counting, to the very end. And no one at the LA Times seems to realize how normal people are perceiving all of this. 
Yesterday, the LA Times&#8217; Noah Goldberg tweeted out this photo of an empty LA Times newsroom, apparently to garner sympathy:
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The LATimes newsroom today. What’s missing <a href="https://t.co/p85IJbeltU">pic.twitter.com/p85IJbeltU</a>
&mdash; Noah Goldberg (@Noah__Goldberg) <a href="https://twitter.com/Noah__Goldberg/status/1750288689564107210?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 24, 2024</a></blockquote>
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Literally no one reacted with sympathy to that photo. Tim Pool had maybe the <a href="https://twitter.com/Timcast/status/1750562538356441167" target="_blank" rel="noopener">best response</a>: 
<blockquote>This is like taking a picture of a kitchen and lamenting there are no roaches running around.</blockquote>
Then, after the post was completely dogpiled by thousands of people, Goldberg <a href="https://twitter.com/Noah__Goldberg/status/1750551574999609778" target="_blank" rel="noopener">tweeted:</a>
<blockquote>Well I’ve gone viral apparently among people who think the LA Times is staffed by journalists who advocate for white genocide and are propagandists. They all believe that the layoffs were good.</blockquote>
Well, that constitutes some accurate reporting from the LA Times, at least, but no one was allowed to celebrate it. Goldberg very quickly locked the replies to that tweet. This is what journalists have to do now —They&#8217;re hiding from the customers they&#8217;re supposedly serving. And yet, somehow, they&#8217;re still in denial about why everyone has so much disdain for them. Even after so many publications have been conducting layoffs this year — including Sports Illustrated, the LA Times, TIME, Business Insider, Forbes, Conde Nast and the New York Daily News — these hacks are still convinced that they&#8217;re irreplaceable. The remaining workers are even going on strike in many cases, as if that&#8217;s magically going to generate the money that these businesses need in order to pay them. But it didn&#8217;t work for the LA Times, and it won&#8217;t work for the New York Daily News or Forbes either.
That&#8217;s because, in the end, reality is non-negotiable. That&#8217;s true for every industry, whether it&#8217;s DEI or journalism. You can only sustain a fantasy for so long. And as journalists and DEI bureaucrats are discovering, sooner or later, whether you hold a funeral for it or not, the fantasy has to end.

Funeral Concepts: Hearse and Flowers

Democrats Hold A Funeral For DEI

Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI)

Los Angeles Times

Matt Walsh

Opinion

Readers Pass

Transgender

Utah

A state judge ruled against <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/notre-dame-university" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Notre Dame</a> professor Tamara Kay on Monday after the pro-abortion faculty member at the Catholic university <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/pro-abortion-professor-sues-conservative-college-newspaper-for-defamation" target="_blank" rel="noopener">sued a conservative student newspaper</a>, alleging it defamed her.
Kay, who teaches sociology, sued the student newspaper — the Irish Rover — last May, claiming it made “false and defamatory statements” about her in two articles that revealed the professor was promoting abortion access, even though Notre Dame states that it <a href="https://president.nd.edu/homilies-writings-addresses/institutional-statement-supporting-the-choice-for-life/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">holds</a> a view consistent with the Catholic Church opposing abortion. St. Joseph County, Indiana, Judge Steven David ruled that the court found the statements made about Kay in the articles “were true, within the meaning of the law, not made with actual malice, [and] did not contain a defamatory inference,” the College Fix <a href="https://www.thecollegefix.com/pro-abortion-notre-dame-professor-loses-defamation-lawsuit-against-student-newspaper/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a>.
“The Court concludes that the allegedly defamatory statements were made in the furtherance of the defendant’s right to free speech, were made in connection with a public issue, were made with good faith and with a reasonable basis in law and fact,” David <a href="https://www.scribd.com/document/697698325/St-Joseph-County-IN-judge-dismisses-Tamara-Kay-lawsuit" target="_blank" rel="noopener">wrote</a>.
Kay alleged that after the Irish Rover published its articles on her, she “has been harassed, threatened, and experienced damage to her residential property” and “has suffered mentally and emotionally.” In his ruling, however, the judge wrote that Kay “has intentionally placed herself into the national discussion on abortion” after she posted on social media and published commentary in newspapers “advocating abortion legalization.”
The professor complained about a headline used by the Irish Rover for one of its pieces, which stated that she was “Help[ing] Students Obtain Abortions.” Kay argued that the headline defamed her, but Judge David wrote that the headline “was not unreasonable given all of the facts of this case,” according to the College Fix.
The Irish Rover <a href="https://irishrover.net/2022/10/keough-school-professor-offers-abortion-access-to-student/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a> that Kay placed a poster on her door that had a “J” with a circle around it, which “denotes Notre Dame professors who are willing to help students access abortion.”
“This is a SAFE SPACE to get help and information on ALL Healthcare issues and access—confidentially with care and compassion,” the poster said.
Judge David wrote that the encircled “J” on the poster “can most reasonably mean to infer” that Kay was “willing to help students access abortions,” which was the crux of the Irish Rover’s article.
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Kay’s lawsuit also alleged that the newspaper misrepresented her quotes. The National Review listened to the audio obtained by the Irish Rover and found that the quotes were accurate while there was some deviation. The Daily Caller also analyzed recordings of Kay and found that there were a few “minor inaccuracies” in the Irish Rover’s reporting, but its articles accurately preserved the substance of the professor’s statements and actions.

Notre Dame

Judge Rules Against Pro-Abortion Notre Dame Professor Who Sued Conservative Student Newspaper For Defamation

Abortion

Courts

Defamation

Indiana

Notre Dame University

The mayor of a small town in Kansas reportedly suspended the police chief who led the August raids of a local newspaper&#8217;s office and homes of its owners, including a 98-year-old woman who died less than 24 hours later, in a move that garnered national attention from news organizations and freedom of press advocates.
Marion Mayor Dave Mayfield <a href="https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2023-09-30/the-police-chief-who-led-a-raid-of-a-small-kansas-newspaper-has-been-suspended" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told</a> The Associated Press that he had suspended Chief Gideon Cody on Thursday, who led the August 11 raids on parties involved with the Marion County Record, a family-owned weekly newspaper serving a community about 60 miles north of Wichita.
&#8220;I did indeed suspend chief Cody and I won&#8217;t discuss any details regarding his suspension as it is a personnel matter,&#8221; Mayfield <a href="https://www.komu.com/news/marion-police-chief-suspended-after-raid-of-marion-county-record-newspaper-in-kansas/article_f4d33a18-cb4c-5b06-9d6c-c46d64251a66.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> in an email to CNN.
Mayfield&#8217;s decision reportedly comes after previously saying he would take action after reviewing the findings of a state police investigation.
Vice-Mayor Ruth Herbel said suspending Cody is &#8220;the best thing that can happen to Marion right now,&#8221; according to The Associated Press.
&#8220;We can&#8217;t duck our heads until it goes away, because it&#8217;s not going to go away until we do something about it,&#8221; Herbel said, whose home was also searched in the raid.
The Marion County Record was named in a search warrant signed by Marion County Court Magistrate Judge Laura Viar in August which alleged violations of identity theft and &#8220;unlawful acts concerning computers.&#8221;
Authorities searched the home of Eric Meyer, co-owner and publisher of the paper founded more than 150 years ago, and the Marion County Record&#8217;s newsroom after reporters dug into allegations that the police department had turned a blind eye to a local sweet shop owner driving with a suspended license after a DUI.
Four Marion police officers and three sheriff&#8217;s deputies reportedly seized personal cell phones, computers, and other materials at Meyer&#8217;s home and the Marion County Record office, including some unrelated equipment needed to publish.
The police department said it believed a reporter might have committed identity theft in pulling records on the local sweets shop owner, but both the newspaper and the reporter said they only accessed publicly available records.
Authorities also <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/video-98-year-old-kansas-newspaper-owner-tells-police-get-out-of-my-house-during-raid" target="_blank" rel="noopener">searched</a> the home of Joan Meyer, the 98-year-old mother of Eric and co-owner of the Marion County Record.
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A <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FD-wJ19eVvE&amp;t=93s" target="_blank" rel="noopener">minute-and-a-half clip</a> shows police raiding her house on August 11, where Meyer can be heard shouting at the cops while wearing her robe and slippers and using her walker. She died less than 24 hours later after she collapsed from hours of &#8220;<a href="http://marionrecord.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">shock and grief,</a>&#8221; according to the Record.
Her son said he believes the stress and anger she experienced due to the police raid contributed to her death.
The police department reportedly posted on August 12 on Facebook, &#8220;As much as I would like to give everyone details on a criminal investigation I cannot. I believe when the rest of the story is available to the public, the judicial system that is being questioned will be vindicated.&#8221;
Legal experts reportedly believe the search from law enforcement violated a federal privacy law that protects journalists from having their newsrooms searched or a state law protecting journalists from disclosing sources or turning over unpublished material to authorities.
Cody <a href="https://apnews.com/article/newspaper-raid-kansas-affidavit-07d9c856894892bff13cb014248ec866" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reportedly</a> defended the raid in a Facebook post, saying the federal law makes an exception specifically for &#8220;when there is reason to believe the journalist is taking part in the underlying wrongdoing.&#8221;
Mairead Elordi contributed to this report.

Marion Newspaper Raid

Police Chief Who Led Raid On Small Kansas Newspaper Suspended: Reports

First Amendment

Freedom of the Press

Kansas

Police

The editor of the Kansas City Star has offered “a long overdue apology” on behalf of the newspaper for its coverage of the black community throughout its 140-year history.
In a <a href="https://www.kansascity.com/news/local/article247928045.html">letter</a> to readers published in Sunday’s edition, Star President and Editor Mike Fannin announced a series of articles examining “the historic role we have played, through both action and inaction, in shaping and misshaping Kansas City’s landscape.”
“I feel it to be my moral obligation to express what is in the hearts and minds of the leadership and staff of an organization that is nearly as old as the city it loves and covers: We are sorry.”
“It’s time that we own our history,” Fannin continued. “It is well past time for an apology, acknowledging, as we do so, that the sins of our past still reverberate today.”
https://twitter.com/kcnewsfan/status/1340647473333886976
Fannin said that the Star “has been one of the most influential forces in shaping Kansas City and the region.” However, he conceded that the publication had “disenfranchised, ignored and scorned generations of Black Kansas Citians,” “reinforced Jim Crow laws and redlining,” and “robbed an entire community of opportunity, dignity, justice and recognition,” especially in its early years.
A team of reporters searched the archives of The Star and The Kansas City Times, which was once its sister paper. They compared reports to coverage of the same events by “the Black press,” finding both The Star and Times had “overlooked or underplayed” many “significant milestones of Black life.”
As Mr. Fannin wrote:
<blockquote>Reporters were frequently sickened by what they found – decades of coverage that depicted Black Kansas Citians as criminals living in a crime-laden world. They felt shame at what was missing: the achievements, aspirations and milestones of an entire population routinely overlooked, as if Black people were invisible. …
Like most metro newspapers of the early to mid-20th century, The Star was a white newspaper produced by white reporters and editors for white readers and advertisers. Having The Star or Times thrown in your driveway was a family tradition, passed down to sons and daughters.
But not in Black families. Their children grew up with little hope of ever being mentioned in the city’s largest and most influential newspapers, unless they got in trouble. Negative portrayals of Black Kansas Citians buttressed stereotypes and played a role in keeping the city divided. …
But white businessman J.C. Nichols got plenty of ink. His advertisements promoting segregated communities ran prominently in The Star and Times. Nichols, who developed the Country Club Plaza, was a protégé of The Star’s founder, William Rockhill Nelson, who enthusiastically supported his effort.</blockquote>
Fannin went on to say that The Star has already taken steps to address institutional racism within the publication, such as recently hiring an editor “to focus on race and equity issues” and prioritizing diversity hiring in the newsroom.
“In the weeks ahead, we will be testing ways to make content that’s focused on stories, issues and people in our diverse communities free to readers in specific Kansas City ZIP codes we have too often failed to serve,” he wrote.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
&quot;We are grateful for how far we’ve come. We are humbled by how far we still have to go.&quot;
This morning, <a href="https://twitter.com/KCStar?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@KCStar</a> publishes a six-part series investigating our own racist history. First, a letter to readers from @kcnewsfan <a href="https://t.co/hYbfvOI8vq">https://t.co/hYbfvOI8vq</a>
&mdash; Allison Kite (@Allie_Kite) <a href="https://twitter.com/Allie_Kite/status/1340708369733214215?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 20, 2020</a></blockquote>
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“It still pains me personally to know that in The Star’s monopolistic heyday – when it had the biggest media platform in the region – the paper did little to unify the city or recognize the inherent rights of all Kansas Citians,” Fannin continued. “But our history doesn’t have to own us.”
“We are grateful for how far we’ve come. We are humbled by how far we still have to go.”

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