You remember the story: police raided a small-town newspaper in Kansas, seizing computers and phones. Pilar Pedraza, a political reporter for KAKE Wichita, got an exclusive sit-down with the woman at the center of the story.
You remember the story. Police raided a small-town newspaper in Kansas seizing computers and phones.
A day after the raid, the 98-year-old woman who co-owned the newspaper died from stress.
The incident became national news as a threat to the First Amendment.
Since then, the computers and phones have been returned, the police chief has resigned and the judge who signed the search warrant is being questioned about her decision to circumvent federal and state law.
Criminal investigations are underway and civil lawsuits have been filed.
“I have been in Kansas for 21 years and I have never seen anything like it,” says Pilar Pedraza, an anchor and political reporter for KAKE, Lockwood Broadcasting’s ABS affiliate in Wichita, Kan., about 60 miles from the newspaper, The Marion County Record. So, why was the paper raided?
Pedraza says according to attorneys in the state of Kansas, the newspaper “didn’t do anything wrong.” There were rumors and allegations. Various bits and pieces that were never really put together, Pedraza says.
“It’s a very complex story. And we had always heard from the newspaper’s perspective.”
The police chief wouldn’t talk, Pedraza says. “And so there were a lot of misconceptions that were out there and there was a lot of information that folks just didn’t know,” she adds.
There was one woman who knew it all. But she wasn’t talking.
Pedraza says at the beginning of the story, the station made a list of all the major players they wanted to talk to who were involved.
But Kari Newell, the woman at the center of the story, was gun-shy, Pedraza says.
That didn’t stop Pedraza. “I just kept reaching out to her: Have you changed your mind, what are you thinking?”
Eventually, Pedraza got the interview, the only reporter in the market, and only the second reporter in the state to sit down with Newell. Jessica McMaster, an investigative reporter with KSHB, Scripps NBC station in Kansas City, was the first to get the interview with Newell.
“It gave us a lot of information,” Pedraza says.
The 10-minute interview, a rarity on local TV news, aired during KAKE’s 6:30 newscast.
Pedraza says KAKE has a policy to give a story the time it needs.
“I told my news director this is going to be long,” Pedraza says. “We never cut anything.”
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