An upcoming court hearing this week, scheduled for February 27, comes after Chancery Judge Crystal Wise Martin failed to hold a hearing in her courtroom before she issued a temporary restraining order that punished The Clarksdale Press Register.
Clarksdale, a struggling, impoverished town of 13,000, is located in the Mississippi Delta.
The editorial, which published Feb. 8, criticized City of Clarksdale politicians for failing to inform the newspaper before Mayor Chuck Espy and the board of commissioner met to discuss a proposed two-percent tax raise.
The editorial, written by newspaper editor/publisher Floyd Ingraham, says the newspaper supports the tax for adding more funds to police department, but it mockingly questions if the city leaders had gotten a “kick-back from the community” for pushing for the tax.
The headline reads, "Secrecy, deception erode public trust."
After the editorial published, the city leaders apparently ran to court and won the ruling from Judge Martin.
"We'll fight it and see where it goes," Wyatt Emmerich, president of the paper's parent company, Emmerich Newspapers, said of the ruling.
Tim Graham, of the Media Research Center, tells AFN the court fight seems like an open-and-shut case for freedom of the press.
"You're allowed to editorialize about something you don't like,” he says. “Just because you live in a small town doesn't mean you have less of a First Amendment right.”
Among many people who are following the controversy, a First Amendment attorney named Adam Steinbaugh is posting about the lawsuit on X. After his first post about the ruling accumulated 1.6 million views on X so far, another post by the attorney said defamation of public officials is actionable only in cases in which “malice” occurs.
Citing court documents, the attorney also points out a city clerk later admitted the media was not notified, meaning the editorial was factual about being kept in the dark.
Steinbaugh also points out the City of Clarksdale ran to a courtroom halfway across the state to get a favorable ruling.
Dan McLaughlin, a senior write for National Review Online, is also following the legal case and made a political connection. “The mayor is the nephew of corrupt Clinton-era Cabinet member & failed US Senate candidate Mike Espy,” McLaughlin wrote on X.
