One of my favorite childhood memories is my father in the evening after dinner, sitting in the living room.
Reading the newspaper.
I remember the rustling as he turned a page, or folded up a section he just finished reading.
Our newspaper was delivered in the afternoon. And Dad always read the paper first before anyone else in the family.
We couldn’t read the paper until he was finished.
Which could take a while, since he would read the entire paper. Including the classified ads.
Not a big issue when we were young and couldn’t read.
But it became more of an issue when we were older and wanted to read the comics and sports pages.
Dad followed local news stories closely. He had his favorite journalists whose stories he would comment on regularly.
He respected their work and tenacity in getting the story, especially news stories uncovering corruption.
Dad admired how Washington Post journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein uncovered the Watergate scandal and revealed how President Richard Nixon tried to cover up his crimes.
First Amendment rights were important to Dad.
Something he passed on to me.
Which is why when I read about the police raid on the Marion County Record in Marion, Kansas, I thought about Dad.
He would be outraged.
So am I.
