In a post two weeks ago, I alluded to the hazards of a major metropolitan newspaper operating without a managing editor, the person who functions in the newsroom as the chief personnel and editorial gatekeeper for all departments, including Metro, Features and Sports. (I would have included Business, but The Star disbanded its business desk last year.)
I noted the absence of a managing editor in the context of questioning how an ill-advised sports column by Sam Mellinger was able to make its way into print. (If you want to know more about that column, you can read about it in that two-week-ago post.) I said that if a managing editor had been in place, he or she might well have derailed that column. As it was, the void in upper management allowed that column to slip through.
Well, management must have been paying attention because this week Greg Farmer, assistant managing editor in charge of enterprise and investigative journalism, was named managing editor.
This is a good appointment, and Farmer is highly qualified for the job. As The Star’s story about the appointment said:
“Farmer has been a story editor and digital editor and has run the newspaper’s metro department. He has been page one editor and news editor.”
He’s been with The Star more than 15 years and has an undergraduate degree from KU and a master’s from the Bloch School of Management at UMKC.
Greg Farmer
One of the managing editor’s roles is to preside at the daily, afternoon news meetings, where the various department heads talk about the stories they have for the next day and beyond. I don’t know who’s been presiding over those meetings — maybe it was Farmer — but it must have been awkward for whoever was doing it. Awkward because the presider could essentially only process the information he or she was getting, instead of being able to throw up a hand and say, “Wait a minute. Are we sure we want to go in that direction?”
Without a managing editor, the person holding the stop sign would be editor Mike Fannin. I doubt he was presiding at the news meetings. More than keeping the trains moving on time and making sure they’re on the right tracks, the editor’s job is to plan the overall editorial direction of the paper. On a daily basis, the editor’s involvement is usually limited to big stories — certainly anything that needs legal review or involves criticism of high-profile people, companies or institutions.
Oddly, The Star had gone nearly a year without a managing editor after the retirement of Steve Shirk. I don’t have hard evidence of this, but I believe the goal was to save money. If that wasn’t the goal, then surely upper management would have appointed a successor right away. I don’t know what led to the decision to finally fill the M.E. job, but I wonder if Tony Berg, the new publisher, had a hand in it. Fannin was the appointing authority, but why would he wait a full year to fill the job, unless the previous publisher, the do-nothing Mi-Ai Parrish, directed him to hold off?
At any rate, The Star has taken the right step by filling the second most important editorial position, and I think we’ll see a better editorial product because of it.
**
Unfortunately, my praise for this positive development is accompanied by a caveat…In trying to reach Tony Berg this morning, to ask him about Greg Farmer’s appointment, I discovered The Star’s dial-by-last-name directory was not accessible.
I called the main number — (816) 234-4141 — several times and got the same result each time. The automated recording prompts callers to press 9 and the pound sign if they know the person’s extension or they want to get to dial-by-last-name directory. After pressing those keys, however, I was met with a recording about a subscription-renewal issue that must be plaguing the paper. (Surprise, surprise, eh?)
The recording goes on to offer other options, but none led to the dial-by-name directory.
This is another setback for The Star in the area of customer service. Customers and readers should be able to leave phone messages for specific people…I sent Tony Berg an email this morning, explaining the nature of the problem. He wrote back a few minutes ago saying he was looking into the problem and apologizing for it.
…Regarding any role he might have played in the Farmer’s appointment, he ducked…”I appreciate your support of Greg’s promotion,” Berg said. “It’s a result of his work and commitment to great journalism for The Star. The Star is fortunate to have him a part of the team. Anything else I can do to be of assistance please do let me know.”
JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC 
Surprise! Another white man in senior management in The Star’s newsroom.
I can’t think of any people of color in”junior” management…
Let’s see, I’m a government whistle blower and have a news tip that I want to share in confidence with a trusted reporter at The Star, how do I find them? The answer for quite some time is you can’t. In place of a directory of reporters you now have an online form that you can send with your name, email and phone number. Right, let me call my contact at one of the TV stations instead.
Don’t know who decided not to publish the directory, but they’re an idiot. Not only will the form discourage discrete tips, it can’t help but slow down processing the tip. There really is no reason to even look at The Star anymore. Indeed, other than double checking the process for contacting a reporter I haven’t looked at The Star for ages even though you can access it for free.
PS Surely Lewis was in the running for this prestigious position. After all, wasn’t he a VP at one time?
Mr. Altevogt: Maybe the white man reader’s advocate could address the issue of diversity in management of The Star’s newsroom.
Given his usual skills at advocacy I’m thinking he probably already has and this is the result.
You know there’s a major problem when the automated response is an explanation of a subscription problem and the final words are, “We appreciate your patience as we work to get this issue resolved.”
Oh, yeah, some of us readers have had to develop lots of patience, while others, like John and Les, have, understandably, turned away from the hometown paper.
Another sure sign of trouble is when access lessens in direct proportion to rising customer dissatisfaction.
As of 5:30 p.m. today, the dial-by-name directory still was not available. Maybe Monday…Or maybe never again. Who knows?
I’m pretty sure that the dial-by-name directory has been gone for months.
For the record, I grew up in a community that had two newspapers, one nominally Democrat and the other nominally Republican. Our family took both papers. Since then, after my MA at Illinois, I’ve lived in DC and subscribed to the Post, lived in two communities in North Dakota and always took the newspaper and then moved to the LA area before moving to Kansas and took the Times. So it’s felt odd not to have a local newspaper in my driveway every morning. I truly wish there was one available that I had confidence in because there are things newspapers can do that tend to be absent in TV news.
…HA 1-1200, we miss you.
By the time I got here, in ’69, the old numbers preceded by the two-letter prefixes (Harrison, in The Star’s case) were gone.
Just read the story of Caesar Belser’s death in The Star online. No where in the entire article does it say how old he was (my first question). Had to go to Wikipedia.
Now if you’d had your Jimmy Olsen hat on, Gayle, you would have told us how old Caesar Belser was…I mean Terez Paylor, Chiefs’ beat reporter, didn’t bother to look it up, so jimmyc readers are relying on YOU…
(Mostly just giving you a hard time here… Caesar Belser was 71.)
Yeah, sorry about that. I definitely dropped the ball, once again proving that you are, indeed, the consummate reporter. (Spoken with only half a tongue in cheek.)
Hi Jim,
Just thought I’d pass on a bit of news. Apparently Greg’s first order of business is to implement a new quota system for reporters based on the number of social media hits they get.
Greg and Mike Fannin laid put the new system in a meeting last week.
Apparently The Star has developed a way of tracking the number of hits. For reporters who share bylines on a story, the lead reporter will get the full count, the second reporter will get only half the count. The quota will be part of the reporter’s evaluation. That will get them moving, don’t ya think?
So, with Woodward and Bernstein, one would get only half a count? How many bylines did Farmer rack up in his career as a reporter?
Thanks for the inside information, Karen…You’ve always worked at maintaining sources inside and outside the paper.
And, Les, I disagree with you picking on Farmer because he has never been a reporter — at least as far as we know. Neither was Shirk, I don’t believe, but he was a hell of an editor.
I have been duly chastised and suitably humbled. Lord, have mercy on me.
I can’t help but wonder how many headlines will now have the words “naked”, or “topless” in them.
Btw, doesn’t Terez Paylor sound like a goof–like it was supposed to be Perez Taylor? Like an Oprah thing.
Maybe Salvador Perez was really supposed to be Palvador Serez.
Somehow it doesn’t translate the same.
Fitz, you’ve probably already heard this, but the word on the street tonight is that more buyouts are underway in the Star newsroom.
Hmmm… wonder if the reporter doing that story will get the full count or if the editors canning the reporters will demand partial credit for making the “news”.
One of my favorite (ex) star reporters was Everly who wrote about energy issues. He was an excellent reporter who provided very interesting and well-reported stories on topics most people could give a hoot about.
I suspect Everly would suffer immensely under a quota system while a slug like Brad Cooper would get a large number of hits from people who were only looking to see what unbelievably idiotic nonsense he was publishing.
Julius — I sure hope that’s not right…I don’t see how they could keep producing a good product — especially print — with any fewer reporters than they’ve got now. If it’s true, it would be the toughest gut shot yet, partly because they’ve been stable, on employees, for a year or more.
Let us know what you hear…I’ve said this before, I don’t have any sources in the newsroom. If I don’t hear it from Tony Berg, who answers my emails regularly, I get it only second hand. The reporters keep their distance from me, for good reason.
“The reporters keep their distance from me”, which speaks volumes about why the paper is not well respected in the community. If they are afraid to talk to one of their own,what hope does the average reader have in getting their gripes heard.
If memory serves, I looked up one of the lists of how papers were supposed to ethically respond to critiques and stonewalling them was not the ethical response.
This update was posted by Karen Dillon on Facebook this morning:
Multiple sources are telling me KC Star employees took another hit this week. I’m told 11 employees were laid off Wednesday and Thursday. That is a total of 26 over the last six weeks.
In addition voluntary buyouts are being offered, newsroom employees were told in a meeting Thursday headed by Mike Fanin.
No journalists were laid off that I know of. It’s unknown yet how many in the newsroom will take the buyout. Obviously there are a number of employees who are in their 60s.
But one victim is Vana Sweetland who worked on the business side for at least three decades and was a Star institution. She was liked by everyone.
Sources are reporting the number of total employees now at The Star to range from 400 to 500 _ down from 1,800 to 2000 in about 2008.
If there are buyouts in the newsroom, maybe anyone in senior management who has no reporting experience might soon get some.
Mr. Altevogt continues to prove what a classless jerk he is with his gratuitous attack on my friend and former colleague Brad Cooper. Why don’t you try covering the Kansas statehouse on your own, pal. I guess because Brad didn’t write daily hit pieces on the Kansas Supreme Court or take what you and other right-wing gadflies had to say as gospel, he’s a slug in your book. This blog was a much better place while you were on hiatus. I think we could use another one.
I seem to be able to tolerate opposing views far better than you, Mike.
Cooper’s “reporting” was atrocious. I know you think we’re too stupid to know the difference, but I respected both of his predecessors (the kid who went to work for the AP and Sullinger) but found his stuff so laughable that I got flashbacks to Roger Myers, the prolific, but error prone CJ statehouse writer for the Cap-Journal.
But I won’t argue with you about his talents, or lack thereof, instead I’ll simply suggest that people look at your post and then ask the question “If I were a conservative would I spend even a nickle on a paper he worked on?” For that matter, if I were a liberal I wouldn’t read stuff written by someone with your attitude. I value knowledge, not propaganda. I can’t deal with an issue if I don’t have the facts to understand it and you’re incapable of understanding multiple viewpoints.
As for taking a hiatus, if Fitz wants a one opinion choir I’ll respect that, but your opinion is meaningless.
Everyone is free to fire away, but I don’t see a lot of value in hammering a former reporter who’s been gone several years, no longer in the business and no longer irritating you, John. Now, Derek, he’s another story; he’s still plying his pablum…but let’s don’t get started on that!
I tolerate opposing views, Mr. Altevogt. And I don’t think that you’re stupid. What I don’t tolerate is attacks on personal friends of mine, like the ones you have delivered against my good friend. It’s real simple: you attack a friend of mine and I’m going to hit you right back, not literally of course but I think you get the idea. And, rest assured, I’m going to hit hard. You have spent years on various digital soapboxes attacking some excellent journalists who have made a lot of personal sacrifices to report and deliver news in a professional and objective manner. You might deem them as slugs or pawns of the liberal establishment. I myself, and many others, regard them as heroes.
Finally, if you want to regard my opinion as meaningless, fine. I don’t have much regard for your opinion either. But I can tell that some have privately responded to my post from yesterday to commend me for challenging you.
I also count Brad Cooper as a good friend and I will tell you this: during my 32 years as a newspaper reporter, he was one of the most dedicated, hard-working reporters I ever knew.
Being dedicated and hard-working doesn’t necessarily guarantee a quality product, Julius. Over the years I’ve found, from my experience that the best journalists may not have been trained as such. Instead, what stands out is an inquisitiveness, one book referred to it as crap detecting, that finds interesting questions to ask and sees through the facade that the herd sees.
Local examples are Scott Rothschild, former Eagle and Journal-World reporter (trained as an English major, I believe) and Roy Teicher, former editor of The Kansan when it was actually a newspaper. Roy was a writer in Hollywood for Johnny Carson and Mork and Mindy, then a columnist for The Times. He’s currently a campaign consultant for Democratic candidates.
Other examples, Mike Shields and Dave Raney, both from the Journal-World and then the Kansas Health Institute. Another in that category currently still working is John Hanna, Topeka bureau chief for the AP. ironically, his mentor, Lew Ferguson was little more than a shill for the sleaze wing of the Republican Party. I’ve also mentioned Mike Hendricks and Everly at The Star on here repeatedly.
Fitz, saw you comment about throttling old reporters after I’d written this. The purpose her of speaking ill of Lew isn’t to pick on hi (although he richly deserves it), but to make the point that good reporters appear to be a function more of nature than nurture. Hanna has done an excellent job with the Topeka bureau despite the example set by his mentor, not because of it. He’s simply a good reporter (and, I’m sure would disagree with my assessment of his former boss).
On layoffs/buyouts, here’s what one former reporter told me:
“Multiple sources are telling me KC Star employees took another hit this week. I’m told 11 employees were laid off Wednesday and Thursday. That is a total of 26 over the last six weeks. In addition, voluntary buyouts are being offered, newsroom employees were told in a meeting Thursday headed by Mike Fannin. No journalists were laid off.”
The total KC Star employee count is believed to be between 400 and 500, down from more than 2,000 a decade or so ago.
” I can tell that some have privately responded to my post from yesterday to commend me for challenging you.”
I’m sure they have, Mike. I’m stunned you didn’t have an entire cheerleading squad. At least you’ve engaged in a dialogue on several occasions and that’s far more than many others.
The first thing journalists need to learn is that they no longer have a monopoly on public discourse. Blogs like this one and others are going to hold them accountable for their work product and a good dialogue holds all sides accountable. I’ve named names because that’s the easiest way I can define for you who and what I consider good journalism. If you think I missed the mark I welcome your comments and you’re correct. I shouldn’t have referred to Brad as a slug. I still think he’s a horrible journalist, but that’s too much like the discussion sections on a newspaper site.
Kudos again for Fitz for creating such a fun forum.