So where were we on the subject of The Star’s price schedule for the print edition?
Oh, that’s right, it’s all over the place.
As you might recall from an informal survey I conducted last week, retail prices ranged from about $16 a month — for a 26-week introductory offer — to about $35 a month, among people I contacted.
In addition, two retired Star employees — architecture critic Donald Hoffmann and society editor Laura Hockaday — said they were getting retiree discounts that put them at $14.83 per month, or roughly half of what most retail customers appear to be paying.
S0mewhere along the line I let the retiree discount slip between the cracks and have been paying a whopping $34.51 per month, having it charged to my MasterCard. (By contrast, I pay $36.66 for a 7-day-a-week subscription to The New York Times, although I get a 50-percent-off, teacher’s rate.)
Several people complained, either in private emails or in the comments section, about the poor state of The Star’s circulation customer service. The complaints ran in polar directions — either how hard it was to get through to circulation or how people were getting dunned by solicitation calls.
Against that murky backdrop, I plunged into action, determined to break through any walls of resistance and get the retiree discount.
Here’s how my crusade unfolded:
Call #1: Circulation, care of “my account.” After a hold time of slightly more than 15 minutes, a helpful-sounding fellow named Vin picked up. In the Phillipines. Confirmed my current rate but, after consulting someone else, said he couldn’t change the rate, that I’d have to call “account billing” in Kansas City. Well, that was a good start: I was on the precipice of getting through to a person at The Star, in Kansas City.
Call #2: The number Vin gave me. But, a recorded message from Phyllis said that number was no longer working and directed me to one of two other numbers, one of which was Phyllis’ new number.
Calls #3 and #4: Got recorded messages from Phyllis, as well as from the person at the other number, assuring me I’d get a return call.
Calls #5 and #6 (24 hours later): Left messages on the same voice mails.
…Within two hours of placing those calls, I was on my way to The Star, the venerable building at 18th and Grand that was the center of gravity for my 36-plus years at The Star.
I didn’t expect to get very far into the building, and I didn’t. Made it as far as the foyer, where a mild-looking, elderly security guard slid the glass open and said, “Hi, may I help you!” — or at least some version of that.
The guard dialed up Phyllis and left a message on her voice mail. He dialed another number and left a message. He dialed a third number and got through. Pretty soon, he extended the phone through the window, saying “Here’s Phyllis.”
Gotta tell you, I almost jumped for joy.
Phyllis was very receptive, listening as I laid out my case and my bona fides as a fully accredited, sheet-cake and pizza-party retiree (class of 2006).
Then she said The Star had recently installed a new computer system and that she herself was not able to go into the system and change my rate. But…but, she knew who could! A woman named Bev who works in Phyllis’ vicinity!
(Editor’s note: In my Oct. 12 post, I quoted a longtime Star carrier who said, “The new system hasn’t worked from Day One.”)
Phyllis said she would talk to Bev and call me back right away. After I gave her my number, the sliding of the glass window officially ended my first visit to The Star in years.
Fortunately, Phyllis was under the impression that I was waiting at the guard station, and she called me back in less than 10 minutes.
The news was not entirely negative and not entirely positive…Bev also couldn’t get into the “new system” and make the fix. Phyllis assured me, however, that she, Phyllis, would make it happen. She would go “across the street” — presumably the green-glassed printing plant across McGee Street — and talk to the technical people in charge of the computer system.
“I’m going to get it done, and I’ll call you to let you know when the new rate is entered,” she said.
Before saying goodbye, I profusely thanked Phyllis for “taking an interest in my case.” I don’t mind saying I gushed because, at that point, the price that I would pay for my paper lay completely, utterly and unequivocally in this fine woman’s hands.
…That was Tuesday. Today came and went without a call from Phyllis — who, I’m sure, is beautiful and has never sinned. Nevertheless, I was not sitting and stewing. Far from it. I laid the groundwork for a bold flanking attack. I called a buddy who is now in ad sales but previously worked in circulation for many years.
Rob said, “I know right where her office is” and assured me he would intercede for me whenever I bugled “Charge!”
So now it’s Wednesday night. Can hardly wait for tomorrow. As Ernest Hemingway once said (by the way, he once worked briefly at The Star briefly):
“I like getting up in the morning not knowing what’s going to happen but knowing something’s going to happen.”
Something good, I trust, something good.
JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC 
Good work, Fitz! If they let you inside, please check to see if I left one of my Old El Paso enchilada dinners in the newsroom fridge. If so, someone needs to get that thing out of there before it jeopardizes the sale of the building and its redevelopment into the Hemingway Arms.
I don’t see me getting past the foyer, Julius, unless I can scrounge up some Navy Seals to accompany me.
Fitz, tell them you represent someone from Omaha who’s interested in buying the Star.
Poor Phyllis has no idea who she’s dealing with!!
I think she has an inkling, Gayle…How many people would show up at the guard station demanding that their problem be addressed? If necessary, I’ll get my friend Rob to get me in as his visitor and escort me to Phyllis.
I recently went through similar hell just trying to get a bill. We had not received one since 2014 but were receiving collection calls. We would explain we need a bill before we would pay. They would say they would mail one. It would never come…until it became my full-time job to try to break through.
Countless calls and holds to the Phillipines, including the EXTREMELY rude Vin, calling every non-working number listed at the website in the hopes of reaching a human, cursing at the auto-voice, you name it. I have never seen such a screwed-up company. We finally found Phyllis after months of calls from both of us just as you described. She is the ONLY person who followed through, helped, and solved our problem.
They need to fire every executive involved with ruining customer service and make Phyllis a Chairperson of the Board. Wink.
Amazing story, Liselle…Thank you for confirming my account, complete with i.d.’s
Now, let the campaign begin…Phyllis for Chairwoman! Phyllis for Chairwoman!
This is not an anecdotal story by any means. I have two normally non-confrontational friends who were foaming at the mouth after dealing with the Philippines when their delivery was. not. happening. At. All. They both ended up cancelling. Two of us wrote colorful emails to the guy at the City Desk and received questionable punctuation and grammar b.s. non-responsive replies.
I left the best part out of my story. After we paid our bill I received a call from collections. I said I was mystified since it had been paid the week before, she put me on hold, and the result was the OLD system had logged it but the NEW system had not. Phyllis for Chairman!
And Mike Fannin sounds like a total dick. Unbelievable story…
Jim:
Whoever the top person is down there now–is it Mike Fannin?–needs to read this. It describes the frustration of so many subscribers and why they are canceling their subscriptions. Love Julius’s mention of the Hemingway Arms!
Thanks for all your time and trouble.
Laura
Fannin probably doesn’t have any piece of the circulation debacle, Laura; it’s in the domain of Ken Batrick, v.p. for “audience,” a grandiose word for circulation.
My opinion is if they can’t get circulation right, why try to razzle dazzle people with the term “audience”? If they turned their focus to plain old circulation — getting the papers delivered regularly and tending conscientiously to customers’ accounts — they’d be a lot better off, and so would we.
…Speaking of Fannin, though, when I first started the blog, back in 2010, I sent Mike a notice about it and invited him to check it out.
Here’s what he wrote back:
“Jim: I appreciate the invite. No offense intended but I generally don’t have time to waste on things like this. Good luck and stay in touch.
Regards, Mike.”
As someone commented about that reply later, when someone says “no offense,” offense usually is intended.
Fannin might be temped to read a post, however, if I ran the police mug shot of him after his 2006 DUI arrest in Wyandotte County. It was his second such arrest.
In addition, before he came to The Star, he was arrested in Texas for misdemeanor assault. He pleaded guilty, was fined $300 and placed on a year’s probation. Before Zieman named him editor several years ago, Fannin told Zieman something like he hadn’t always been a choir boy. If Zieman vetted him, he didn’t do a very good job. Hard to imagine a guy with a police mug shot and an assault charge and two DUIs getting named editor of a major metropolitan paper.
No offense, you understand, just statin’ the facts.
But Laura’s right: shouldn’t everything begin and end with Fannin? Isn’t he ultimately responsible?
I remember you recounting that “time to waste” (waste?) remark; way to snap his shorts with that background info.
Thank you, Laura! I think the old Nelson Room cafeteria would make a great lounge area and party room for the residents of the Hemingway Arms, don’t you? And maybe we could put out a daily newsletter of all the activities going on …
You know, I don’t usually get involved in these debates. Unlike that busy guy Fannin, it’s not that I don’t have time. I just tend to nod, say to myself “right on” and move along. “Right on” is something us old folk used to say when we weren’t. Old folk, that is.
Anyway, I felt like I had to get involved here because Julius is WAY out of line with the comment on the Nelson Room. I respect you as a friend and brother J, but rein it my fellow former cast member. You’re thoughtless.
The Nelson Room is not a place for happy Millennials to toast away the night.
The loving ancestors to the mice and wharf rats that used to crawl along the walls and in the storage areas, those same mice and wharf rats that used to make our day by entertaining us as we dined on taco salad, they need that space. It’s their Miami, their Phoenix, their low-rent John Knox Village. Respect their rights, born out of decades of habitation and earned by a century of providing PG-rated entertainment to Star AND Times workers.
Sorry to interrupt. But this trend of gentrification has now gone too far.
Long live the Hemingway Arms. But the Nelson Room. It shall be like that home nestled in a nook of a shopping mall in the Ballard Neighborhood of Seattle.
You need to call the retiree who ran circulation up until a few years ago. The Star still has him coming in to try and fix the new/old system.
Bob can probably tell you all the stories involved. He learned the last system inside out because nobody wanted to learn it. And that was his security blanket for years. He was the only one who understood it.
And there will be no one to take on the new system as he did.
Gayle — No, the editor is not responsible for every dimension of the newspaper operation. The publisher is. There are five vice presidents: Fannin, editorial; Bryan Harbison, CFO; Randy Waters, production; Tony Berg, advertising; and Ken Batrick, audience development. (They are listed every day at the bottom of the opinion page, beside the imperious mug shot of William Rockhill Nelson and his quote: “A paper for the people.” Everything regarding circulation falls at Batrick’s feet.
Batrick has been at The Star nearly 35 years, and it is disappointing that his operation is so pathetic.
‘kay, I stand corrected. Obviously it’s easier to shoot my mouth off than dig up a copy of the A section. Wouldn’t have thought to do that anyway. But thanks for the lesson.
Even with a scorecard, it takes some explaining, Gayle.
I am happy to read that I can expand my NY Times to daily since my wife is a teacher….and for less than the cost I pay now for Saturday and Sunday!
Just call them 800-698-4637. Unlike at The Star, operators are standing by. Glad I could be of help.
I have a feeling we’ve been deprived of some mighty entertaining reading by Mr. Hayes not contributing before now.
Hayes doesn’t tolerate change well…
You’re right, Dave Hayes! I take back what I said about a re-use for the Nelson Room, which helped make me the man I am today. It should be preserved forever as it is.
On a more serious note, I have something I want to say about Mike Fannin. When I was laid off from the Star in June 2008 and working my last two weeks before the final curtain, Fannin walked up to my desk one night and told me he was sorry about what was happening, and that he was sorry to see me go. He didn’t have to do that. It meant a lot to me, and I will always remember it.
Congratulations on your fine sleuthing once again, but you missed a couple of points about Fannin that would also strike him from leadership at most reputable institutions.
The first is boinking one of his underlings in the sports department who I believe was then made an editor (I don’t know the individual so can’t comment on her qualifications). That alone in this day and age would send many an executive packing,
The second is Big Fatty’s assertion that Fannin was chewing on the neck of a male employee. And while that employee was not named I have to think that it’s The Star’s ill-suited Public Editor (so named owing to the fact that it became exceedingly clear that he was not by any means a “Reader’s Rep.) How else does one explain the continuing presence of a thin-skinned buffoon who is incapable of dealing rationally, or ethically, with conflict when those are the ultimate qualifications for having the position except through some non-meritorious contact with a superior?
Oooo, this just reeks (in more ways than one) of salacious backstorys.
Big Fatty?!?
Chewing on the neck?!?
Do tell …
Sorry, Gayle i thought that would be well known amongst this crowd. As Jason Whitlock was leaving town he gave a radio interview in which he claimed that Fannin had kissed another male Star employee on the neck (been too long to remember other details). As for the affair with the subordinate, I don’t remember the source of that, perhaps either an old post here, or perhaps on Hearne’s blog. The DUIs reported by Fitz are also old news.
More important to me than all the salacious backstories is the fact that Fannin knowingly allowed the paper to be used to wage personal vendettas (above and beyond the various political vendettas). For all his flaws he was apparently a hell of a sports editor, but running the whole shebang, not so much.
You’re a good man, Julius Karash.
Thank you, Gayle. GO ROYALS!
Just goes to show, does not matter profession, I’m sure these stories can be found anywhere.
Right now, I’m too depressed about the Royals.
Gayle, you are absolutely right. I had a very good friend who resigned from Congress owing to marital infidelity and certainly heavy drinking is not restricted to newspaper editors. That’s why I said my real concern with Mr. Fannin was with his lapses of journalistic ethics, not his personal flaws.
Oh and three cheers for the Royals.
Hip, hip, horray! etc., etc.!!
(Ever wonder what that means? And why three?) :-)
No time like the present to learn.
Just curious, I may have missed something here…but did you ever get a satisfactory response?
I’m still working at it…Nothing yet.
Meantime, McClatchy said in its 3rd Quarter Earnings report today that it has begun a review of its real estate assets to identify properties it may sell:
http://www.newsobserver.com/news/business/article41530197.html
I would think the wonderful old Kansas City Star building at 18th and Grand is being looked at closely in this regard.
“McClatchy shares closed Tuesday at $1.33, down 11 cents.The company gave its stock a boost by repurchasing 1.35 million shares in the third quarter at a weighted average price of $1.12.
“In August, the company was warned after its stock price fell below the New York Stock Exchange’s $1-a-share minimum, jeopardizing the Sacramento, Calif.-based company’s continued listing on the exchange.”
Just a matter of time before the company is de-listed, it would appear. And just a matter of time before they start selling off papers, not just buildings, I would think.
I would agree, Fitz. It was just about a year and a half ago that McClatchy sold its Alaska paper:
http://www.mcclatchy.com/2014/04/08/3469/mcclatchy-to-sell-anchorage-daily.html
One of the most interesting things in that story, Julius, is that the buyer, an Alaska-based company called Alaska Dispatch Publishing, is “the state’s sole online-only news organization.”
Even more interesting, Wikipedia says Alaska Dispatch began as a blog in 2008, started by former Bloomberg and Newsweek correspondent Tony Hopfinger and his then-wife, journalist Amanda Coyne.
The paper is now named the Alaska Dispatch News.
To me, that story gives hope to the prospect of local ownership, even in the much larger Kansas City market.
Bravo for
Excellent points, Fitz. Hope springs eternal!
Interesting article but really a moot point. Anyone that pays for that rag deserves any crap that comes with it.