The difference between an overarching presentation of a big story and a parochial one couldn’t have been clearer than in The Kansas City Star’s and The New York Times’ coverage today of developments in the world of for-profit colleges.
The contrasting coverage highlights the effects of the downturn of fortunes for most big-city daily newspapers.
Where we have landed, after all these years of the newspaper industry’s precipitous decline, is that readers of most metropolitan dailies’ print and online editions get cheated because they get a narrow, incomplete view of many stories with broad and deep implications.
Such is the case with the story of Corinthian Colleges Inc., one of the country’s largest operators of for-profit colleges and trade schools. One of Corinthian’s main brands is its Everest colleges, one of which is located at 92nd Street and State Line Road in Kansas City.
With that backdrop, let’s take a look at The Star’s coverage of the U.S. Department of Education’s recent crackdown on Corinthian, which basically under-educates students and over-promises jobs, while relying on — and getting rich on — federal student aid that accounts for the vast majority of its revenue.
The Star
A locally written story on Page A-7 of today’s Star carries this headline: “Everest College to carry on despite sale.”
The headline clearly signals that the story’s focus is the fate of the 92nd and State Line school, not the national scandal surrounding for-profit colleges, especially Corinthian.
In his lead paragraph, staff writer Brian Burnes (a good hand whose work I formerly edited) reports that “Operations at Everest College in Kansas City will continue as usual…even though the facility is among the 85 schools currently listed as being for sale by its corporate parent, Corinthian Colleges Inc.”
The second paragraph goes like this:
“The first thing we wanted to make sure of is that all of our students were able to continue their education without any delay or additional costs,” said Kent Jenkins Jr., a national spokesman for Corinthian. “That is the case at Kansas City Everest.”
After reading those reassuring words, I guess Star readers are supposed to wipe their brows, jump up from their kitchen tables and say, “Well, thanks be to God!”
The only hint in Burnes’ 11-paragraph story of what has been afoot at Corinthian comes in the fourth paragraph:
“Last month Corinthian…announced that education officials had limited its access to federal funds after it failed to provide documents and other information. Critics had accused the corporation of altering student attendance information and job-placement rates.”
Note how Burnes backed into the unsavory aspect of Corinthian’s dealings. First, instead of stating the situation as fact, Burnes has Corinthian announcing that the education department had imposed sanctions. Second, he says critics had accused the corporation of wrongdoing.
Now, let’s take a look at the flip side of this story.
The Times
The paper’s leading editorial carries this headline: “Lessons of a For-Profit College Collapse.”
Well, now, collapse? That puts things in a whole new light, at least for me.
…Before going any further, I will readily acknowledge that what a writer can say in an editorial and what he or she can say in a straight news story varies greatly: One is opinion, the other is arm’s-length reporting.
Nevertheless, the contrast in basic information provided by The Times and The Star is jaw dropping.
Here, for example, is The Times’ factual description of the Corinthian mess:
“Corinthian, which is being investigated by federal regulators and by several states, has finally come to a kind of reckoning. It has reached an agreement with the Department of Education to shut down or sell about 100 campuses during the coming months.”
Burnes could have written essentially the same thing, but he didn’t. In addition, The Times didn’t back into the company’s difficulties; it let the investigators hand down the incriminating allegations:
“According to federal officials, the company refused to turn over data that would have allowed it to determine how well students were succeeding and actually admitted to falsifying job placement and or grade and attendance records at various locations.”
Falsified records? Compare that with Burnes’ words — “altering student attendance information…”
There’s more. The Times also cited a lawsuit filed last year by the California attorney general in which the a.g. alleged that Corinthian “deliberately singled out low-income single parents who lived near the poverty line, urging recruiters to focus on ‘isolated’ people who had ‘low self-esteem.’ ”
In sum…
The Times’ editorial leads me to believe that the operators of Corinthian Colleges Inc. are a bunch of scheming, greedy bums. Burnes’ story, on the other hand, makes it look like Corinthian administrators merely hit a speed bump.
Pretty bad, wouldn’t you agree?
Jim:
I have to stick up for my former colleague, Brian Burnes, who is a solid, hard-working, fine reporter, as you know having been his editor at one point. Am sure he did NOT have the time to investigate Corinthian Colleges as perhaps The Times writer did. Brian, like most all Kansas City Star reporters today, is doing the work of two or three people or more and not complaining. The Everest College assignment he had I’m sure was one of several in perhaps one day or possibly two. He has a weekly column, plus he reports on daily news stories constantly. He is a very competent, dedicated reporter. I am sure time was a major factor in Brian’s article. There just was not enough of it to delve into the subject the way the New York Times did.
Brian Burnes, thank god, is still at The Star and has not departed like so many of his outstanding colleagues have, either on their own or being forced out. The Star is not the place we all once knew and loved, as I’m sure you know.
Sincerely,
Laura
Those are all valid points, Laura, and a stirring defense of Brian, as well as the much-diminished staff that continues to toil away at 18th and Grand. I appreciate that.
In addition, I didn’t like it that Brian had to take the brunt of my criticism, but I hope you see my larger point here — that too often readers of The Star and other metropolitan dailies get a blinders-on perspective of a larger story. It doesn’t have to be that way. If a reporter is assigned to write a story about Everest College in Kansas City, he can and should put the local dimension in clear and broad perspective. Brian didn’t take the extra steps, and the readers, once again, were not served well.
At one time, I might have reported the story just like Brian did — hitting it lightly and moving on. But not any more. It’s now painfully clear that KC Star readers are getting gypped over and over by superficial treatment of local stories with broader contexts. Each reporter has to take it upon himself and herself to make sure they give every story its due. That means having to work harder and resist the temptation to get on to the other stories you’re juggling — even if editors are breathing down your neck. But if you keep reminding yourself, first and foremost, about your responsibility to the readers, you will be compelled to do the right thing.
Jim:
I really believe Brian feels a great responsibility to his Star readers. There is no way to be perfect in journalism. Whenever you think you’ve written a flawless article, someone is bound to find a flaw in it. I will always remember the great AP reporter, Jules Loh, speaking to us at The Star long ago. He said something I’ve never forgotten:
“Journalism is a profession in which you are always an apprentice, never a master.”
How true. On my last story, after 38 years at The Star, my editor asked me to rewrite the lead three times so someone might possibly read past the first paragraph. I did and she was right.
Cheers,
Laura
How long before Brian is named the new head of public relations for Everest KC? Ain’t that how it’s been agoin these days? But hey, we all got bills to pay.
Laura’s comments ring true. The Star has very talented people working there, but they are both overworked, and, on occasion, restricted by the paper’s editorial biases. Since the latter would not seem to be the case, the former would be a logical explanation.
My favorite horror story was when the Healthcare Foundation of Kansas City brazenly discriminated against the City Union Mission and the Salvation Army based on their sincerely held religious beliefs. the Foundation refused projects to provide actual medical care for the poor and indigent in favor of highly questionable “advocacy” projects that did nothing but fund various leftist organizations, most unrelated in any way to healthcare.
There was sufficent information contained in online minutes of the meetings, a judge on the Board denounced the discrimination and a prominent local MD, Dr. George Hoech even went so far as to resign in disgust, writing a letter to the editor, a letter which was rejected, as was any discussion whatsoever in the pages of the Star. No Stalinist fist pounding could have locked that story down as tightly as The Star’s editorial staff. The story was published in The KC Business Journal.
The reporter in that area was Julius Karash and I cannot imagine him ignoring that story and I know he was not only aware of it, but had far more information than I had concerning what had gone on. Months later Julius mentioned it as dicta in one sentence buried in the middle of his column on all of the the grants the Foundation had given out (also downplayed were the more controversial “advocacy” grants).
At any rate, Fitz, there seems to be consensus among Burnes former colleagues that his talent exceeds what was seen in this story and so we have to look elsewhere for the proximate causes of the failure to fully inform.
I think you’re on target, John — it’s not entirely Burnes’ fault — and I’ll use one of my least favorite words to describe the proximate cause — systemic.
Geez, guys, let go of the past.
Brian is a nice guy and anybody who knows him gets that.
However covering up for lazy, lackluster work based upon him being a jolly good fellow is bogus. Just because we all happened to work with him and know him.
Jimmy C needs make no apology for Brian taking the brunt of his blame.
And Laura, speculating that Brian is doing the work or two or three people is beyond ridiculous. So he’s working 16 to 24 hour days? Please. How do you know how much work Brian is doing.
So much that he can’t write one story without missing the actual news and burying the lead, as Jim notes?
Clearly, most people at the Star are working harder these days, but the fact is that when they had over 2,000 employees instead of 600 and change, people like Brian were able to coast along with scant few bylines.
Nobody is doing the work of three people at 18th and Grand, they’re merely putting in full days sans the slacker time that existed when the Star was obscenely profitable because it enjoyed a monopoly of sorts.
For several years I wrote five columns a week with an average of four topics per column. As Laura and Jim know, I was edited very heavily. Every word was put under the microscope and no matter how small or seemingly toss away an item was, I was grilled and it was insisted upon that it was sourced and attempts to get a comment if need be were made.
Jim is dead on. Brian and his editor (s) messed up and missed the boat.
Jim’s just trying to be a nice guy by telling readers Brian was a nice guy.
Brian was always kind of a slow boat with a penchant for stories that had a historical hook or bent. That’s what he loves.
Biting down on a hard news subject is about the furthest thing from the body of Brian’s work.
Let’s stop making needless excuses for people we used to work with.
We don’t generally make those kind of excuses for other news subjects we cover. It calls into question our objectivity.
My “give-no-quarter” friend at kcconfidential.com has the right perspective on this…And he makes an excellent point about us former Star reporters and columnists having had it pretty good when the revenue was flowing wildly and staff was plentiful. We didn’t have to worry too much about the deadwood because there was plenty of “live” firepower to pick up the slack.
That’s all changed, as Hearne says. And reporters like Burnes, who love to indulge in their areas of particular interest (in Burnes’ case, history-related stories) don’t have nearly as much time for those indulgences. In today’s newspaper environment, you’d better be a good and enthusiastic “general assignment reporter” or you’re likely to find yourself atop the layoff heap.
One has to sympathize with reporters at The Star. I’ve caught stories where editors had inserted their own opinions into a story as fact without the reporter’s knowledge, I’ve have seen more times than I wished a good reporter’s story mixed with a hack’s version to give it the “correct” editorial spin.
I’ve seen the editorial department endorse candidates reporters knew to be not only unqualified, but only marginally sane. And of course the one are of their jobs that they can’t report the news is the bastardization of their own stories, or stories they’ve gotten tips on and weren’t allowed to pursue.
Add in the notoriously bad headlines that are often attributed to the reporter and it’s not an enviable position to be in for someone trying to manitain a reputation for being fair and balanced.
Two things that I insisted on when I wrote my column there was 1 I actually sat there with the copy editor (you remember those guys) as my column was put on the page, and 2. I did not allow anyone to bastardize the language in my columns by calling a dead baby a fetus, or some other nonsense.
When Rich Hood (Steve Winn his assistant) was the head of that page, with minor exception, opinion was treated as text. It was manipulated only for the purpose of clarity and brevity and my work was always the better for the editing process it went through.
John, the editors – or even the copy editors at time – may insert their POV. I don’t think it’s widespread though, but it happens. Hopefully after consulting the reporter.
In my case, they did so more by subtraction – taking out some of the more edgy passages – and/or using the headline (copy editors write those generally) to get the tail to wag the dog.
Seriously though, Jimmy C is right when he muses about how slack things used to be for quite a few beat reporters. While that’s undoubtedly less the case now with the reduced body count, I think characterizing a very laid back (nice guy) reporter as doing the work of three is acute hyperbole.
I used to joke about how little most Star reporters did by comparison to television reporters with KCTV news director Don North. While the TV news stations limit their coverage to a very small slice of the pie, they get their job done with a tiny fraction of the Star’s staff.
Anybody that’s doing the work of three reporters now at 18th and Grand is probably doing so based on the three having been working at a 20 percent level.
Now copy editors and certain staffers are undoubtedly stretched a bit thin, but they ain’t seen nothing yet. Because of the direction things are headed, there’ll be far fewer people putting out the news in the immediate years to come but once they start out with younger staffers at the work levels needed to get the job done, they won’t feel so set upon like many of the current older staffers do after having had it so easy for so many years.
Back to Jim’s primary point though, Burnes and his editor blew that story. Forget about whether they are nice guys or not, that’s not germane to the subject.
And what’s that expression Jimmy C is always using, “Nice guys finish…”
…on top.
There was a young lady from Nantucket…
In the words of the prophet, “Ha, Ha”
Thank you, John Altevogt, and Hearne, hang it up!
Hang what up?
I would never hang up on you, Laura!
But I do think you could use a few lessons in both math and hyperbole. You think Burnes is doing the work of “three or more” people and “not complaining”
???
This is a good primer for aspiring journalists and helps explain why you were a “society columnist,” not an in the trenches reporter or news columnist.
First of all, nobody at the Star is doing the work of three people “or more.”
I hate to be so painfully literal, but that mean they would be putting in – not an 8 – but a 24 hour or more day. Seriously?
As for using your missing-in-action reporting skills, how can you write that he is “not complaining” if you didn’t ask him? I talk to people at the Star all the time and t’s pretty hard to find somebody there who is “not complaining.”
Finally, I think you might have been correct if you’d said Burnes was doing three times or more the work he’d done prior to the cutbacks. Nice guy though he is, Burnes was never what you would call prolific when the newspaper had 1,500 to 2,000 employees versus the 600-plus they do today.
But my money is on that if he’s doing triple his former workload, he’s maybe putting in a hard 8 hour day. Which you know, a lot of people in the real world are and have been doing for their entire career.
Fitz is correct in noting that with some exception, there was a lot of fat in many reporter’s and editor’s schedules back in the good old days.
Those days are gone, however.
I remember when FYI got an Indian girl, I believe, interning one summer during her college career and she was incredibly efficient and did a ton of stories, including at least one front page feature in FYI. I also remember brian McTavish joking about she was putting out so much content that she was making the rest of the staff look bad.
What actually s happening at 18th and grand is that newspaper reporters and columnists are having to step up their games and put in actual nose-to-the-grindstone workdays.
The newer younger staffers are being indoctrinated into this new work ethic, but it’s tough on the oldsters and they don’t like it.
With the exception, of course, of Brian, who’s knocking back 24 hour-plus workdays and has yet to complain!
A shout out to Barb Shelly for her pieces on the for profits. this is a huge drain on the federal budget. and locally, Grantham University [was this school named after a character in Downton Abbey?] is cashing in on the border war game by moving to Kansas from its current location in Zona Rosa.