Well, The Star had a rough week on the personnel and management front, but it got back to its stock in trade Saturday, with breathtaking coverage (at least for me) of the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre.
The editors played the story big, really big. Deservedly. They swung hard and hit a home run.
Above the fold — in large white letters on a striking, black background — the one-word headline “Horrific” jumped out at the reader. Below that was a margin-to-margin photo of Connecticut State Police officials shepherding a line of young students to safety, through a parking lot.
Above the word “Horrific” were three small sub-heads, centered left to right, that said: “School shooting leaves 20 children plus six adults dead;” “Shooter kills his mother at home and himself at school;” and “Principal, school psychologist are among the dead.”
Above the three sub heads was a thin white, separating line, capped with the words “TRAGEDY IN CONNECTICUT,” again in small font but all caps.
If you had been in a cave and out of contact with the news on Friday and you picked up The Star and looked at the top half of the front page, you would have the gist of the story in a few seconds. With just 30 strategically placed words and one large photo, The Star distilled a complex and far-reaching story that has shaken the nation’s underpinnings.
But that above-the-fold gut punch was only the start.
Below the fold, on the left side, was the main news story, picked up from The New York Times news service. (Smart choice.) To the right of that was a series of three small photos, with black borders that continued the color scheme above the fold. One of photos showed a woman wailing and talking on a cell phone. Another showed President Obama appearing to brush a tear away from the corner of his left eye.
The highlight of the page, however, was an opinion column by The Star’s Mary Sanchez, under the headline, “We must act now, for the children of Sandy Hook.”
Sanchez’ experience over many years, during which she has found her voice and honed her style, gave her the confidence and depth to assemble the most profound column she has ever written. Her call for gun control was restrained but very impassioned, and it brimmed with clean, clear, powerful sentences.
Consider her first two paragraphs:
“The nation has a duty to protect its tiniest, most vulnerable citizens. Our children.
“America is failing at this task, and the proof is lying in Connecticut morgues.”
Chilling.
She went on to say, “If the slaughter of a classroom of children isn’t enough to press for reasonable gun control, then nothing will help America. We might as well hand out NRA memberships with birth certificates.”
Frightening.
The coverage then “jumped” to page 16, where the lead news story and Sanchez’ column continued. On the facing page (17) were a timeline of the nation’s deadliest mass shootings since the mid-1960s and three more stories. The Associated Press and New York Times produced two of the stories, but the third one — about schools being designed increasingly with safety as a top consideration — was written by The Star’s higher education writer, Mara Rose Williams.
Williams, a widely respected veteran within the newsroom, told about some of the safety features in new school-building designs, including double-door entries. At schools with such doors, Williams said, “Visitors are required to show an identification card, be photographed by cameras and answer questions through an intercom system at the door before being buzzed in by a secretary.” The idea being to keep potential intruders at the front door.
Adding to the impressiveness of the story was the fact that Williams assembled the story using only local sources — two architects and the Kansas City School District superintendent.
If all that coverage wasn’t enough, when you turned to the back pages of the section, the lead editorial collared you with this arresting headline: “Weep for the children, then pass sane gun laws.”
One of the most biting paragraphs went like this:
“If 26 persons were killed in a bridge collapse, we would have an immediate discussion about fixing our bridges. It makes no sense to continually skirt around the gun issue when innocent people keep dying from gun violence.”
***
Friday was not only a day for the country to remember but a day to be remembered locally for The Star’s ability to rise to the tremendous challenge of distilling and capturing the horror and import of what might go down as one of the most heinous events in our nation’s history.
The Star acquitted itself beautifully, and for that I am immensely proud of my former employer.
JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC 
I respect the opinions of those that favor gun control. And I respect Ms. Sanchez’ work and see her on KCPT. I think she does a very strong job – and we do not have to agree on a topic or aspect of a subject matter – to give credit due.
I have looked at a weapon pointed at my face and lived to type. But the laws were violated in this case. Is the NRA the most powerful lobby this side of Nordquist and the biggest – the banks – yes. The train for making gun-law changes has left the station. I PRAY and offer condolences and SALVATION for all of the victims. If the person committing the killings had no illness, he is evil and I hope he is already in hell.
An illness or evil will be the reason these people died. I have had a person in my immediate family murdered. It was not a gun, and I am not opposed to what many pro-gun owners would scream about. As long as laws are not changed with guns that change my ownership. They can alter the administrative process, and should. The government steals enough lobby money to pay for these changes now.
My brother was murdered by a drunk driver driving north on I-435 South and collided into my sober thirty-two-year-old, identical, twin brother, who was operating his vehicle legally in the I-435 South center lane. Should we quit selling or change alcohol laws?
Illinois has some of the toughest gun laws in the U.S. and also a city with the most murders – Chicago.
Fitz, I agree, The Star’s coverage of this tragedy was well done, and I understand that was your main point.
I know from our conversations that your family has been through a lot, Larry, and that gun control is a very difficult issue…What I keep thinking about is how hard it would have been to have stopped any killings from happening in the Newtown case. The kid stole legally purchased guns from his mother, a gun fancier. You can never stop theft…So, I think the best we can do is limit the types of weapons that are sold to the general public. The Second Amendment is the shrine of hunters, and I have no problem with that. But there is no hunter who needs 50 shots, fired in seconds, to kill a rabbit, a deer or even a grizzly bear.
Americans can have all the guns they want, as far as I’m concerned, but the guns should go bang, bang, like the old six-shooters on TV. That way, everybody has his or her right to bear arms, but the nut cases can be corralled after several shots instead of hundreds.
I have been a gun owner and an NRA member. No more for a long time.
A sportscaster was excoriated for saying a Kansas City Chief and his girlfriend would be alive if not for a gun. Twentyeight persons, 20 children, would be alive if not for a gun(s).
Amidst the extensive coverage of the Newtown slaughter in the New York Times (Sat., Dec. 15) were two stories: a man was charged with first degree murder in the shooting of a teenager in a dispute over loud music, and in China a knife-wielding man stabbed 22 primary school students. All the students survived.
Your examples speak volumes, Ridge. Thanks.
Fitz,
I agree. No no person in the U.S. needs an AK-47, M-16 or a Barrett A-50 (a sniper weapon). I point out realistic gun-law change that will not come; the NRA is a K-Street power. Mr. Shannon, I enjoyed your radio work and still enjoy seeing you on KCPT. I agree with Fitz – you raise great points.
Variables such as theft, mental illness, someone sharing legal weapons by an illegal user cannot be forecast. Law enforcement, unfortunately, can only react.
Again – I PRAY for those slain, their families, friends, colleagues and – the children.
It is so, so sad – that these random acts of violence, and the killings, seem to be more and more common.
Good comment, Larry.
Say, you’ve got Ridge Shannon confused with Mike Shanin, who, I believe, is still on the radio and on KCPT-TV.
Ridge is a celebrity in his own right: He was news director at Channel 9, KMBC-TV, for many years, including the early 80s, during the Christine Kraft brouhaha. (He’s also the father of my wife’s business partner.)
Fitz,
You are correct. But Mike Shanin, within the last six months, I believe departed the afternoon radio program and was with Betsy Webster. And I rememeber Mr. Shannon, from the Christine Kraft situation and from his on-air editorials.
Merry Christmas
I’ll just stick with The Star’s coverage of this terrible tragedy (and not get into the gun control discussion). It was most appropriate in light of the magnitude of the story and shows that Mr. Nelson’s creation is still quite capable of “hitting on all cylinders” when called upon to do so. It will be interesting to see how this late-breaking story on the killing of two Topeka police officers is handled.
Well put, Rick — “hitting on all cylinders.”
Along with some level of new gun control laws, we also need to deal with our avoidance of mental health. Mental illness is viewed as a stigma and we don’t treat it, and we don’t talk about. It sounds like the young man had been ill for many years. If he had been diagnosed with childhood leukemia, he would have received extensive treatment at the time of the illness, and regular follow-up visits with continued testing. As it was though, his illness involved his brain and we leave that “treatment” to his family or the city streets to deal with.
Two Topeka Officers Slain — should have been front page instead of bottom of the gutter on page 4.
Mary Sanchez was so far off base in her reportage and opinion Helen Keller could have picked her off. Always emotion with her. Never logic. Since logic requires mental discipline and she is a liberal that explains that. No Socratic Method there.
Had Ms. Lanza had her weapons and ammo properly secured in a safe, that only she could access, this disaster would have never happened. Responsible gun ownership DEMANDS that owners properly secure their weapons. Most weapons come with trigger locks from the manufacturer. If you intend on owning or collecting firearms your first purchase should be a safe.
In black neighborhoods all over the US over 20 BLACK people are killed on a weekly basis. Where is the outrage? Are those lives less valuable? Or is that behavior an elephant that we must continue to ignore for politically correct reasons.
In this case it seems obvious that both parents knew that their son was “different”. They had the resources and means to get him the best possible help. Pretending your child is normal does not make them so. The equal outcome agenda promoted by progressives, educators and parents is as much to blame for this as anything. Children who are different as a result of any mental illness, disability or disorder should NOT be mainstreamed into the public education system. There is a reason they are called special needs. We are all not the same. We are not all entitled to all of the things life has to offer. We all have limitations and restrictions, mental and physical. We can sing Kumbaya all we want. Not all of us can sing on key.