Every day for the last week I’ve expected to read or hear that Fox Sports has fired or suspended Jason Whitlock for the outrageous Twitter comment he made about women and New York Knicks’ sensation Jeremy Lin. I don’t know how he did it, but with one little tweet he managed to paint women as [...]
Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
Calling Fox Sports: Anybody home? Did you notice that Jason Whitlock is a misogynist, as well as a racist?
Posted in journalism, politics, sports, Uncategorized, tagged Anthony Federicorfox, ESPN, Fox Sports, Jason Whitlock, Jeremy Lin, Max Bretos on February 20, 2012 | 26 Comments »
Obama’s decision on the super PAC: Stand on principle or increase the risk of losing re-election?
Posted in politics, Uncategorized, tagged New York Times, Obama, super PAC on February 14, 2012 | 21 Comments »
Sometimes, my beloved New York Times tends to get too liberal and idealistic for my Democratic tastes. One of the things I love about The Times is that it holds politicians to extremely high standards — as it should, of course — and seldom lowers the bar. But in an editorial last Wednesday, The Times [...]
KC Star: Excellent Sunday paper and a sports reporter winds up a four-decade career
Posted in Uncategorized on February 13, 2012 | 19 Comments »
Hats off to The Star for a fine Sunday paper. The front page consisted of three “enterprise” stories, that is, not breaking news but stories reported and written over a period of days or weeks and focus on a person or development that has been in the news. Two sports-age stories – one on new [...]
Santorum, Romney and Paul run one, two, three locally, as well as statewide
Posted in Uncategorized on February 8, 2012 | 12 Comments »
Perhaps those of you who are interested in politics would like to know how the top candidates for the Republican nomination for President fared Tuesday in Kansas City and Jackson, Clay and Platte counties. As far as I can tell — and I’ve looked and looked — The Star didn’t run the local results of [...]
Citadel Plaza: No citadel, no plaza; so far, just junk
Posted in Uncategorized on February 3, 2012 | 30 Comments »
Slowly, federal and city governments are taking steps to mop up the criminal and environmental detritus of a long-term, aborted attempt to develop the northwest corner of 63rd and Prospect. On Thursday, as reported by The Star’s Mark Morris, developer William M. Threatt, 71, pleaded guilty to failing to properly remove and dispose of asbestos [...]
Red-light-camera “scoop”: A story that wasn’t ready for prime time
Posted in journalism, Uncategorized on January 31, 2012 | 11 Comments »
A week after The Star ran its badly flawed red-light-camera story, aspects of the debacle are still coming to light. Steve Glorioso, a public relations consultant for American Traffic Solutions (ATS), a private company that helps runs the red-light program for the city, contends that reporter Christine Vendel and her editors rushed the story into [...]
Letters to the Editor: From dead on to drivel
Posted in Uncategorized on January 30, 2012 | 12 Comments »
To me, one of the best benefits of having a subscription to the printed edition of The Star is turning to the Letters to the Editor page, going over them leisurely and checking out the headlines for ones you might be interested in. I would venture to say that very few people who go to [...]
Red-light-camera controversy: Calling all cars to 12th and Locust, where a crime has been committed
Posted in Uncategorized on January 26, 2012 | 14 Comments »
The red-light-camera controversy, which ignited on Tuesday when The Star published a front-page story under the headline “Red-light cameras don’t add to safety,” is very weird. Almost inexplicably weird. Almost, I said, and that’s why I suggest you read on. It appears to me, based largely on Wednesday’s follow-up article, which exposed some glaring mistakes [...]
Passing thoughts on people making news or writing it
Posted in journalism, Uncategorized, tagged Joe Paterno, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Thomas L. Friedman on January 23, 2012 | 19 Comments »
No. 1: Joe Paterno Why didn’t he quit, or why wasn’t he shown the door, several years ago? As it is, he remained the face of Penn State during the worst big-time-college-football, sex-abuse scandal in history, as far as I can tell. If he had quit several years ago, the backlash from the scandal (including [...]
If you’re worth $250 million, maybe $374,000 in speaking fees really does qualify as “not very much”
Posted in politics, Uncategorized, tagged 15 percent, Callista Gingrich, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich on January 19, 2012 | 19 Comments »
If Mitt Romney wasn’t finished as a viable presidential contender before Tuesday, he most certainly was, in my opinion, after his comments on taxes and income that day in Greenville, S.C. Asked directly what his effective tax rate was, Romney said: “It’s probably closer to the 15 percent rate than anything. For the past 10 [...]
