Judge Orders Newspaper To Delete Editorial Critical of City Government
A city sued a local newspaper for libel over an editorial that was critical of the local government. A judge took the city’s side and ordered the editorial scrubbed from the internet. The city backed down amid backlash, but that doesn’t erase its blatantly unconstitutional attempt at censorship, nor the court’s agreement to go along with it.
Earlier this month, the mayor and city council of Clarksdale, Mississippi passed a resolution to impose a 2 percent tax on retailers selling alcohol, tobacco, hemp, and marijuana. The proceeds of the tax would benefit “public safety, crime prevention, and continuing economic growth in the city.”
On February 8, The Clarksdale Press Register published an editorial—credited to the paper as a whole but written by publisher Floyd Ingram. Titled “Secrecy, Deception Erode Public Trust,” the piece seemed to support the proposal, in theory: “Your Clarksdale Press Register will be the first to say that a sin tax that would pay police to fight crime in Clarksdale is a good idea….More police will lead to more patrols, more patrols will lead to more arrests, more arrests will lead to less crime and less crime will make us all feel safer in our homes and neighborhoods.”
But the author complained that while the city government “sent [the] resolution to the Mississippi Legislature,” it “fail[ed] to go to the public with details about this idea” first. “As with all legislation, the devil is in the details and how legislation often morphs into something else that benefits somebody else.”
“Maybe [city commissioners] just want a few nights in Jackson to lobby for this idea—at public expense,” the editorial wondered.
“I customarily e-mail the media any Notice of Special Meeting,” the city clerk later confirmed in an affidavit, “however, I inadvertently failed to do so” in this case. Ingram went to her office and got a copy of the notice, the order, and the agenda after the meeting had concluded; according to the clerk’s affidavit, the meeting only lasted four minutes.
The incident is, at the very least, embarrassing to the city government. And yet instead of challenging the Press Register‘s assertion or explaining itself, the city took legal action.
On February 13, the city council voted unanimously to sue the Press Register for libel over its editorial. “I would like for the record to reflect,” added Mayor Chuck Espy, “even though I did not vote, I am in full support, and I am fully vested in the decisions that the four commissioners unanimously said.”
Last week, Judge Crystal Wise Martin of the Chancery C
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