{"id":143512,"date":"2025-02-21T03:00:43","date_gmt":"2025-02-21T03:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/?p=143512"},"modified":"2025-02-21T03:00:46","modified_gmt":"2025-02-21T03:00:46","slug":"judge-orders-mississippi-newspaper-to-delete-editorial-criticizing-public-officials","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/?p=143512","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;Judge orders Mississippi newspaper to delete editorial criticizing public officials&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/news\/world\/americas\/us-politics\/clarksdale-press-register-first-amendment-judge-b2701108.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Independent<\/a>: &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/topic\/first-amendment\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">First Amendment<\/a>&nbsp;lawyers and press freedom advocates are sounding alarms after a&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/topic\/mississippi\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Mississippi<\/a>&nbsp;newspaper was forced by a judge to delete an editorial criticizing city officials in Clarksdale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The city sued the publishers of the&nbsp;<em>Clarksdale Press Register<\/em>&nbsp;over&nbsp;<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/tinyurl.com\/yux2uu8f\">an editorial<\/a>&nbsp;from February 8, which criticized officials for failing to notify the public about a hearing on proposed tax increases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">On Tuesday, without a hearing to review the allegations, Hinds County Chancery Court Judge Crystal Wise Martin ordered the newspaper to \u201cremove\u201d the column from its website.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8230;The editorial was removed from the newspaper\u2019s website on Wednesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">..It is unclear what Espy believes is \u201cfalse\u201d and \u201cmalicious\u201d about the editorial. A city clerk even submitted an affidavit admitting she \u201cfailed\u201d to notify the media about the hearing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cIt&#8217;s hard to imagine a more unconstitutional order than one compelling a newspaper to take down an editorial critical of the government,\u201d Seth Sterns, director of advocacy for the Freedom of the Press Foundation, told&nbsp;<em>The Independent.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cAnd it\u2019s particularly ironic when the editorial in question is about government secrecy undermining the public trust,\u201d he added. \u201cIf anyone previously trusted the secretive officials involved in this censorship campaign, they shouldn&#8217;t now.\u201d&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Independent: &#8220;First Amendment&nbsp;lawyers and press freedom advocates are sounding alarms after a&nbsp;Mississippi&nbsp;newspaper was forced by a judge to delete an editorial criticizing city officials in Clarksdale. The city sued the publishers of the&nbsp;Clarksdale Press Register&nbsp;over&nbsp;an editorial&nbsp;from February 8, which criticized officials for failing to notify the public about a hearing on proposed tax increases. On&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-143512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-newsstory"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=143512"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143512\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":143513,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143512\/revisions\/143513"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=143512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=143512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=143512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}