• Home
  • About me: Jim Fitzpatrick
  • Contact

JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC

Feeds:
Posts
Comments
« Rushing pell-mell to sainthood (not me, a couple of other guys)
Dan Margolies returns to journalism — will head up health care coverage at KCUR »

The Pitch weighs in on the “Dimming Star”

April 24, 2014 by jimmycsays

If you haven’t read it, I strongly recommend The Pitch’s story this week about The Kansas City Star’s decline and sagging fortunes.

Posted on The Pitch website Tuesday, the story is titled “Dimming Star: Things just get less and less bright at the city’s shrinking daily paper.”

The print edition of The Pitch is available at restaurants, coffee shops and other places where the paper is carried.

the pitchWhat used to be written off as merely an “alternative weekly,” The Pitch has been getting increasingly stronger in recent years, like many publications that have flourished in the Internet era, while the influence and power of “old media,” that is, most metropolitan dailies, have waned.

While I’m not a regular Pitch reader — still “old media,” you know — I have become familiar with at least two Pitch reporters, and both have struck me as first rate.

One is Steve Vockrodt, who did a great job of covering the campaigns for and against the proposed half-cent-sales-tax increase for translational medical research last fall. While The Star’s Mike Hendricks nipped around the edges and came in and out of the picture, Vockrodt was all over it.

The other reporter I’ve gotten to know — just by talking to him on the phone — is David Hudnall, who interviewed me for The Star story.

He spent several months developing the story, while working on other stories, too, and his exhaustive, methodical reporting paid off in a big way. He produced a seven-take piece of tremendous depth and breadth.

Among other things, the story covers 1) the sharp decline in editorial employees and the accompanying morale dropoff; 2) the McClatchy Co.’s ill-advised, almost disastrous, purchase of The Star and the other Knight Ridder papers in 2006; and 3) emerging journalistic models, such as the St. Louis Beacon. (The Beacon was founded by a former St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter and editor in 2008. Late last year, the Beacon merged with St. Louis Public Radio, which, according to Hudnall, now “rivals the declining Post-Dispatch.”)

Very interesting stuff, all seven takes of it.

…I have to give myself a little promo at this point, because one of the most striking quotes in the story came from none other than JimmyC.

It comes in the first half of the story, where Hudnall is chronicling the various ownership changes at The Star.

I’ll let Hudnall take it from there:

(The Star) hasn’t been locally owned since 1977, when it was sold to New York–based Capital Cities Communications, which later merged with Disney, which in 1997 sold the Star to Knight Ridder. In June 2006, Knight Ridder sold the Star, along with 20 other newspapers, to the McClatchy Co., a Sacramento-based newspaper chain, for $6.5 billion. After the sale, McClatchy CEO Gary Pruitt came to Kansas City to give a customary newsroom pep talk.

“He’s standing up behind this podium, giving this big spiel about how great of a purchase it was,” says Jim Fitzpatrick, a former Star bureau chief in Wyandotte and Johnson counties, who was with the paper for 36 years. “When in fact McClatchy had bought all these papers at the exact wrong time and had taken on all this debt to do so. The previous few years with Knight Ridder had been pretty rough — lots of buyouts and layoffs. So I raised my hand and asked if he was planning any buyouts. He just laughed and said they were planning on expanding, not contracting. I just remember thinking, ‘How the fuck am I gonna get out of here?'” (Fitzpatrick retired later that year.)

…Actually, I was a little shocked to read my own four-letter-word quote. I didn’t specifically remember saying that, but I’m sure I did because I was rambling along pretty loosely in the interview, not doing much self-editing as I went. I’m kind of a reporter’s dream in that way because I sometimes speak before I think. Oh, well, c’est la vie; it added to the story.

***

Since we’re piling on The Star today, I’ve got a beef about this morning’s paper.

It’s about the front-page, JJ’s “back from the ashes” story by reporter Joyce Smith.

Overall, it’s an interesting and informative story, but Smith unfortunately failed to include the fact that a plaque honoring 46-year-old Megan Cramer, who died in the Feb. 19, 2013, explosion will be placed in the new JJ’s, which will be in the Plaza Vista development across the street from the old location.

cramer

Cramer, with young friend

I learned about the plaque after sending an e-mail to David Frantze, who owns JJ’s, along with his brother Jimmy. In the e-mail, I said I hoped that a plaque or another form of recognition was in the plans. He said it definitely was and that the plaque had been announced at the Wednesday news conference that Smith covered.

Either Smith decided that it wasn’t important enough to include in the story, or, less likely, she included it and her editor cut it.

Here’s the thing: Megan Cramer died because Missouri Gas Energy employees failed to follow simple, basic safety rules. She should be with us today and should be going back to work at JJ’s when it reopens later this year. Her name, life and death are inextricably linked to the explosion, and the fact that the Frantzes are going to honor her with a permanent plaque in the new restaurant definitely should have been part of The Star’s story. Very disappointing.

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook

Like this:

Like Loading...

Related

Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments

4 Responses

  1. on April 25, 2014 at 8:43 am Laura Hockaday

    Jim:
    I agree that David Hudnall did a superb job in his Pitch article. As for Joyce Smith, she is a fine reporter, as you know. I can’t imagine her not including it in her story. No one knows what an editor will do to your story, but the good ones discuss changes with you.
    Your reporting should still be read in The Kansas City Star, Jim.
    All best,
    Laura


    • on April 25, 2014 at 8:58 am jimmycsays

      Thanks, Laura…No way I could or would go back to The Star, and I’m sure you feel the same way. Our days at 18th and Grand, and our era, have past. I can’t imagine it being much fun, and weren’t we lucky in that regard? Also, the all-for-one, we-take-care-of-each-other environment, which prevailed for the most part, is long gone.

      Hope you’re doing well, Laura! You will always be the titular Star figure around whom the rest of us gravitate. You set the standard for duty and loyalty to the paper and diplomacy and kindness among peers.


  2. on April 25, 2014 at 11:04 am Thomas R Shrout Jr

    Yes indeed, the St. Louis Beacon and St. Louis Public Radio’s joint venture does rival the Post-Dispatch. As someone who was a news source for many years in St. Louis the Beacon has the institutional memory — therefor reporting in context — that is quickly fading at the Post. Post reporters will tell you that their work is not edited as it should be because of the cutbacks. By the way, we subscribe to the Star and the LA Times electronically. I am not sure if that is the perfect business model but at least there is some attempts at innovation. I love the new breed of bloggers, but also like to get news from neutral, reliable sources as well.


  3. on April 26, 2014 at 11:56 am jimmycsays

    Not so fast there, Thomas…A friend in St. Louis, a person with deep roots in journalism over there, wrote this to me in an email…the commenter prefers to remain anonymous.

    The part about the Public Radio site rivaling the Post is way off, I think. The Post is certainly declining, but the Beacon/Public Radio does not have a detectable pulse. Before the Beacon was merged into the Public Radio (late last year), nobody (a small exaggeration) read it. Its stories rarely got reader comments. I am unaware of it doing a single investigative piece in its five or six years of existence. It was as boring as it was pretentious. No sports. No crime…It’s widely felt that the Beacon salved Emily Pulitzer’s guilt over selling off the Post and abandoning newspapers. She poured a few million into the Beacon.

    The Beacon has disappeared — its name had so little impact that Public Radio discarded it almost immediately.



Comments are closed.

  • Pages

    • About me: Jim Fitzpatrick
    • Contact
  • Archives

    • May 2022
    • April 2022
    • March 2022
    • February 2022
    • January 2022
    • December 2021
    • November 2021
    • October 2021
    • September 2021
    • August 2021
    • July 2021
    • June 2021
    • May 2021
    • April 2021
    • March 2021
    • February 2021
    • January 2021
    • December 2020
    • November 2020
    • October 2020
    • September 2020
    • August 2020
    • July 2020
    • June 2020
    • May 2020
    • April 2020
    • March 2020
    • February 2020
    • January 2020
    • December 2019
    • November 2019
    • October 2019
    • September 2019
    • August 2019
    • July 2019
    • June 2019
    • May 2019
    • April 2019
    • March 2019
    • February 2019
    • January 2019
    • December 2018
    • November 2018
    • October 2018
    • September 2018
    • August 2018
    • July 2018
    • June 2018
    • May 2018
    • April 2018
    • March 2018
    • February 2018
    • January 2018
    • December 2017
    • November 2017
    • October 2017
    • September 2017
    • August 2017
    • July 2017
    • June 2017
    • May 2017
    • April 2017
    • March 2017
    • February 2017
    • January 2017
    • December 2016
    • November 2016
    • October 2016
    • September 2016
    • August 2016
    • July 2016
    • June 2016
    • May 2016
    • April 2016
    • March 2016
    • February 2016
    • January 2016
    • December 2015
    • November 2015
    • October 2015
    • September 2015
    • August 2015
    • July 2015
    • June 2015
    • May 2015
    • April 2015
    • March 2015
    • February 2015
    • January 2015
    • December 2014
    • November 2014
    • October 2014
    • September 2014
    • August 2014
    • July 2014
    • June 2014
    • May 2014
    • April 2014
    • March 2014
    • February 2014
    • January 2014
    • December 2013
    • November 2013
    • October 2013
    • September 2013
    • August 2013
    • July 2013
    • June 2013
    • May 2013
    • April 2013
    • March 2013
    • February 2013
    • January 2013
    • December 2012
    • November 2012
    • May 2012
    • April 2012
    • March 2012
    • February 2012
    • January 2012
    • December 2011
    • November 2011
    • October 2011
    • September 2011
    • August 2011
    • July 2011
    • June 2011
    • May 2011
    • April 2011
    • March 2011
    • February 2011
    • January 2011
    • December 2010
    • November 2010
    • October 2010
    • September 2010
    • August 2010
    • July 2010
    • June 2010
    • May 2010
    • April 2010
    • March 2010
  • Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

    Join 544 other followers

Blog at WordPress.com.

WPThemes.


  • Follow Following
    • JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC
    • Join 544 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Copy shortlink
    • Report this content
    • View post in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...
 

    %d bloggers like this: