Well, our beloved hometown paper blew it today — not on one of its two front-page stories (that’s all we get now on the front page any more) but on both.
Let’s take the screw-ups in order of egregiousness…
“Kansas City board votes to close three schools”
This story was at the bottom of the page but, obviously, extremely important. It isn’t often that a school board votes to close schools, and it’s always big news, especially in the depleted Kansas City district.
So, look at that headline again and prepare yourselves for a pop quiz:
What’s the first thing you would be looking for as you jumped into that story?
A) What time the sun sets in Kansas City these days?
or
B) Which three schools are closing?
You all get an “A” on the quiz because the answer is “B.”
How long did it take, then, for reporter Mara Rose Williams to tell the readers which schools are closing?
The story takes up part of six columns, two on A1 and four on 11A. Williams doesn’t name any of the three schools on the front page, and it’s not until the first column of the “jump” that she names one of the three.
She doesn’t name the other two until the sixth and last column, and those are included in a throw-away series of “bullets” that wrap up the story.
Not only does Williams fail to give the readers the “news” in straightforward fashion but she gives no other information about any of the three schools, such as where they are located and how long they’ve been open.
Ok, ok…I know many of you are wondering by now which schools are closing and where they are. Here you go:
— Wendell Phillips Elementary School, on 24th Terrace just west of Woodland Avenue
— Southwest Early College Campus, 65th and Wornall
— Satchel Paige Elementary School, on 75th Street just west of Indiana
…I have no idea what Williams was thinking here, but she could not have been very focused on the task at hand. And more surprising is the fact that Williams is one of The Star’s top reporters. In July 2014, for example, she and Mike Hendricks collaborated in exposing the UMKC business school’s lofty rankings as the result of orchestrated fraud and misrepresentation.
But good reporters sometimes lose their way; it happens to the best. And that’s why there are editors…So, where were the editors on this story?
Sadly, they, too, were in a coma.
Another thing about that story…Williams says in the second paragraph that school board members Amy Hartsfield and Marisol Montero voted no. That begs the question who voted yes? Do all readers know the names of the other school board members? Hell, no! It drives me crazy when, on big votes — whether it be school boards, city councils or state legislatures — The Star doesn’t tell the readers who voted “yes” and who voted “no.”
…I tell you, this kind of reporting is unacceptable in a major metropolitan newspaper. It cheats the readers and makes the paper look amateurish.
**
“Bernie Sanders rallies his faithful fans in KC”
This was the lead story in the paper — the centerpiece — with good reason. Sanders’ campaign has generated tremendous enthusiasm, particularly among young people.
The story itself — written by Scott Canon and Dave Helling — was good as far as it went, but the event cried out for a sidebar story. There should have been a second story, inside the paper, about the size of the crowd; how crowd flow was handled; and who controlled access to the convention center.
Crowd size was an important element of this story because, obviously, it reflects the depth of local interest in the Sanders campaign. And access was important because thousands of people were stacked up outside the convention center waiting patiently to get in.
As I said in yesterday’s post, the size of the crowd was amazing. When my daughter Brooks and I arrived on the scene about 11:30, Bartle Hall was completely surrounded on all four sides. That’s four blocks of people — thousands.
When we first arrived, it didn’t look like the crowd was moving, but later we could see people advancing slowly through the entrance on 13th Street and then through metal detectors before going into the convention hall. I counted about five metal detectors — which seems like a very small number relative to the crowd size — but there could have been more.
Brooks and I gave up shortly after noon, and when we left Bartle Hall was still completely encircled by people.
In their online story, Canon and Helling said, “Sanders took the stage about 1:15 p.m., 15 minutes late but with still scores outside trying to clear security and crowd in with the upstairs throng.”
In today’s print edition, the only reference to a crowd estimate of 7,500. Gone was any reference to the outside line.
In a phone conversation this morning with Kansas City’s top convention center officials — executive director Oscar McGaskey Jr. and deputy director Michael C. Young — I learned a lot more about how the event was handled.
First, the Convention and Entertainment Facilities Department was not in charge of anything; all it did was host the event for the Sanders team. From there, the Secret Service was in charge of security and access. “The Secret Service managed the entry point from start to finish,” Young said. “Our staff and our subcontractors were not involved.”
Young would not say how many metal detectors were in use. (Naturally, that’s why it’s called the “Secret” Service.)
Surprising to me, Young said it appeared that almost everyone who was waiting outside got in for most or all the candidate’s speech. The lobby was empty, Young said, when he arrived 15 minutes after Sanders had started speaking.
Young said the size of the crowd exceeded the Sanders team’s expectations, and he admitted that he, too, was impressed.
“It was something to see,” he said.
Yes, and it would have been something for The Star to write about…if the editors had planned properly.
**
I want to add a quick, personal anecdote here…On Tuesday, Patty and I observed our 31st wedding anniversary. Feeling pretty giddy about that, I approached her at one point, put my arm around her and said, “Tell me, do you think I’m about the best damn husband who ever came along?”
She paused for a moment and said, “For me…yes.”
JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC 
KC Schools. The vote was two no’s, two abstentions, the rest were yeses. She didn’t mention the 4-5 split which seems a pretty important difference of opinion on something this big.
That makes the reporting of the vote — or lack thereof — even more important. Thanks, Penelope.
Jim, the additional information about the Sanders rally was interesting, however I am beginning to feel like you’ve been unable to put the Star experience behind you as others who worked there have been able to do. Your two pieces on Cuba were excellent and very interesting. Surely there are other non Star issues you can write about.
I appreciate the observation, Keith, and especially putting your name to the criticism. But just as a professional baseball player will forever analyze games differently than casual fans, I will always read that paper through the eyes of a 37-year veteran of reporting and editing. And I will comment, appropriately, here, “at the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC.”
…One more thing, Keith. Try to read that school board story and tell me if you come away confused.
When one is on the inside, there is a certain obligation to protect the people that sign your paycheck. However, when these jobs are with institutions that the public must depend on for cultural survival, then the insider has an ethical obligation that goes beyond keeping silent to protect the higher ups. Keith may not see using your hard earned experience inside the institution of The Star as a public service, but then, I am not sure he understands the commitment one makes when they aspire to the title of journalist…but James Madison did. Get over the 1st Amendment? No thanks.
There’s no question that your points today were all well taken and, yes, I thought the school board piece was not very good but attributed that to editing, poor as it was. My point is that your non Star stuff is really good and you still have contacts around town that might create some interesting pieces. Just my thoughts as a loyal reader.
Yes the Cuba piece was a nice change of pace. However, through your wit & wisdom illustrated in your Journalism 101 articles I’ve been tutored in the art of recognizing good reporting. Now in these waning days of newspapering finding well written pieces is similar to the elusive joy of finding morel mushrooms. I’m always hungry for more. Please keep swinging. I’ll keep reading.
RE school closures: no more inverted pyramid? No more AP stylebook?
That piece didn’t need an editor, it needed either to be spiked or rewritten.
Thanks, Jayson and Will.
(Good to hear from you again, Jayson, and just when I needed a supportive hand!)
…You know, I understand Keith’s concern and am glad he felt free to express himself. There’s a lot of aimless, barbed criticism on the Web, and there are still a lot of people out there who, rightly, appreciate and want to defend their hometown paper. I’ve said The Star is the best news-gathering operation between Chicago and the West Coast, and I, too, have a great appreciation for the paper. But I want it to be top notch — just like I want Kansas City to be first class in every way (new airport?) — and so I hold it to high standards. All of us subscribers should demand that.
…Back in the ’70s, I coined the phrase “disgruntled former KC Star employees,” applying it to the first such person I knew who fit the bill — that being the late Tom Leathers who got fired and started the Town Squire in Johnson County. Another notable disgruntled former employee is Hearne Christopher, who flailed away at The Star in his blog after he was let go in the mid- or late 2000s. He moved to Lawrence a couple of years ago and now doesn’t write very often, and very seldom about The Star. I guess distance has cooled his jets.
Point is I am not in the disgruntled category. I got a career in and left on my own volition with a pizza and sheet cake party. But I will always be a journalist, and I will always write about the field in which I spent my career. When I criticize The Star, it’s not out of meanness or seeking to be an agitator; it’s to try to prod Star reporters and managers to maintain journalistic excellence.
Excellent editorial critique, Jim. The story on the school closings was a mess. If one my news-ed students had submitted like that I’d have sent right back to write a proper, complete story. My question is this: If you and I saw the flaws in the story how come the Star’s copy desk — assuming one still exists — didn’t see the the flaws. It’s this bad nearly every day. I read Star stories and wonder if they hired Helen Keller as a proofreader. – David C.
Thanks, David…My understanding is there is no copy desk any more. There are copy editors but instead of being located at a central desk, with a copy chief and a “slot” editor, they are assigned to the various editorial desks. So, they’re strung out hither and yon. The lack of a centralized copy desk diminishes the copy editor’s role, I think. As it used to be, when the copy chief spoke — as in, “clean up this crap,” it got done.
(David is an adjunct instructor of journalism and related subjects at Benedictine College in Atchison, KS. He is also a former KC Star reporter.)
Helen Keller reference, not cool!
I just have to say that in Patty, you obviously met your match!!! Congratulations to both of you on your 31 years! That’s quite an achievement.
Thanks, Karen…I’m glad you appreciated her comeback…I hope you’re doing well.
Is that what you call a left-handed compliment? :-)
That’s a good way of putting it, Gayle. I hadn’t figured out how to categorize it.
As a disgruntled reader, I think it’s a good thing that Fitz brings a fairly unbiased assessment of The Star’s work product. We all have a stake in seeing that our local media provide us with quality journalism and quite frankly, there’s not a lot of it going around.
JFK Jr. in his magazine George declared KC to be a top 10 corrupt city and yet one looks in vain for stories on corruption in the local media. To the contrary, I see The Star endorse a convicted felon over a former community college president for a seat on the KCKCC board and you have to wonder about their integrity.
The Legends sold for over 130 million in 2013 and yet in 2014 was assessed by the county at under 100 million while at the same time residents of the inner city are paying taxes on appraisals of over 200% and The Star flees from the story.
The hypocrisy of trying to hold The Star above criticism when that’s what it does for its bread and butter is despicable.
By the way, I rarely say anything about The Star anymore simply because I no longer read it. It’s become irrelevant and one need only compare the “likes” on Facebook for local TV stations compared to those for the Star to see just how irrelevant it is in the local information marketplace.
Somebody read somebody’s mind. I was just thinking we hadn’t seen you here in a while.
Thank you. My wife’s mother passed recently and I’ve been pre-occupied.
It’s a communal worry here at jimmycsays when John goes missing…
On the school story: this is only speculation, and I don’t know anything about the individuals involved, but many talented reporters are not at their best when they have to write a breaking news article on a tight deadline. (I assume the board meeting was in the night.) The first thing that gets lost in these cases is clear organization: The reporter gathers the facts and includes them in the article for the most part, but they are not presented in a coherent way. Experienced line editors or copy editors wouldn’t blink at having to fix this on deadline, but something tells me that the depleted ranks of city editors are out of practice editing anything on deadline other than crime stories.
I think that is a great point, Mike. (And let me say I don’t think this commenter is Mike Rice, a former Star reporter, who comments here regularly.)
I was thinking about that yesterday…I would say at least half the front page stories in The Star are pre-packaged, with the bulk of the content prepared in advance, well before the night-time deadline. There’s a lot more anticipating and planning than there used to be, which is a good thing overall. But it does result, as you suggest, in fewer stories, especially of the front page variety, written under deadline pressure.
It’s always hard to write on deadline (yes, that was a night meeting), and it takes a lot of practice. As a rule, Mara Williams, the education reporter, is working on “enterprise” stories, which are big-picture stories that spring from news developments. Enterprise stories are carefully planned and mapped out and not pointed, usually, at any particular publication date. They run when they’ve been vetted and are ready to go.
Mara may not have written a “breaking story” on deadline for months before Wednesday night’s school board meeting.
…I would like to point out that Mara did a very good job on today’s Melissa Click story, which she probably had more time to prepare, even though it, too, was “breaking news.” I was very glad to see that in the first few paragraphs, she named every member of the board of curators and how each voted. Maybe my criticism of her previous story before helped prompt that good, basic reporting. I’d like to think so…
To Pops Underwood: Let me clarify, Pops, that I’m not exactly an insider. If I was still at The Star, drawing a paycheck, I wouldn’t sound off publicly like I do these days. My only connection now is my $891.23 monthly pension check from McClatchy.
I’m a former insider and write from that vantage point, trying to lend insight from my experience.
(You have a prodigious memory for the characters who held forth at The Star, even though you never worked there…Steve Underwood must have retired in the 70s. Copy editor, right?)
No, I am not the Mike who posted that comment.
I’m sorry for your loss, John.
Thank you.