Mr. Meyer said he had never experienced government pressure like this. “If we don’t fight back and we don’t win in fighting back, it’s going to silence everybody,” he said. He had returned full time to Marion during the Covid-19 pandemic and stayed on, retiring from his university post and spending more time writing and editing for the newspaper, and living with his 98-year-old mother. He said he does not receive a salary, though he receives an annual bonus if the company turns a profit at the end of the year. On Saturday, his mother died. In an article published online on Saturday evening, the newspaper connected Joan Meyer’s death to the search, writing that it had made her “stressed beyond her limits.” The headline: “Illegal raids contribute to death of newspaper co-owner.”