Happy Easter, everyone.
At Country Club Christian Church’s three worship services today, the theme of Rev. Glen Miles’ sermon was “The End Is the Beginning.”
We can all relate. We’ve all experienced endings, transitions and new beginnings. Some endings have segued into good periods and some bad. And then, of course, there’s that ultimate ending and new beginning that Pastor Miles was talking about today.
On a less daunting but yet important front, several members of The Kansas City Star editorial staff are in the process of ending careers and beginning retirements that some of them didn’t anticipate coming so soon.
Five longtime staff members recently accepted another newsroom buyout. They are editorial page editor Steve Paul, editorial page writer and op-ed columnist Barbara Shelly, theater critic Robert Trussell, online editor Jody Cox and assistant sports editor Mark Zeligman.
Their departures, I understand, followed the layoffs of about two dozen employees in other parts of the company. But even those layoffs and buyouts weren’t enough for The Star’s owner, the McClatchy Co., to put down its bloody scythe. No sooner had the newsroom buyouts come to light than five longtime news, features and photo employees were called in and told their services were no longer needed. They are medical writer Alan Bavley, assistant business editor Greg Hack, assistant photo editor Mary Schulte, features writer Jim Fussell and Metro reporter Brian Burnes.
Today, I want to put the spotlight on two of those people — the two I knew the best — Shelly and Burnes.
In the mid-1980s, Shelly was a young reporter covering City Hall for the afternoon Star, while I was covering the hall for the morning Kansas City Times. (The Times was dropped in 1990, with The Star moving to mornings.) Shelly and I shared office space in the 29th-floor “press room,” which offered a beautiful view of the Northland.
Shelly
In those days, the papers competed (it was largely artificial but pushed both papers to excel), and Shelly was a tough competitor, beating me to the punch on stories more often than I liked to admit. But she was unfailingly gracious and friendly, and we always got along well. She went on to nab a coveted spot on the editorial board, where she wrote aggressively and perspicaciously on a wide range of subjects, including the Kansas City school board, the school district and the Missouri and Kansas legislatures.
Her last column, which ran Friday, was a call for Missouri and Kansas residents to elect legislators whose foremost allegiance was to their regions and constituents, not to ideological movements, such as the Republican-led push in the Missouri Capitol to change the state Constitution to allow businesses to discriminate against gays and lesbians.
Shelly wrote:
In the current political climate, any progress in this region will come as a result of smart, visionary leadership at the local level. And from a strong, united defense against the threats from Jefferson City and Topeka.
With that, she signed off, for good, as an employee of The Kansas City Star.
**
Brian Burnes has been one of The Star’s two best storytellers, along with Don Bradley, who, I presume, is staying on.
Burnes
I worked with Burnes in 2005-2006 at my last KC Star outpost, the Independence bureau. The bureau was in a storefront — next to a mattress store — on the northeast quadrant of I-70 and Noland Road. We had about eight reporters in the bureau, and Burnes was among them. What I remember most about him was his professionalism — always showing up with his “work face” on, never complaining and always accommodating with editors — not an easy way to be, given the tensions of the newsroom and the egos often at play.
His primary “beat” was Independence government, but he was also The Star’s all-purpose history writer. One of his biggest contributions to the paper has been his exhaustive coverage of the Hawley family’s excavation of the Steamboat Arabia and its conversion to a popular museum in the River Market.
Early this month, Burnes wrote a Page 1 story about the Hawley family’s next possible undertaking — excavating the remains of the steamship Malta, which sank about 80 miles east of Kansas City in 1841.
Unless Burnes has another story rattling around in “holdover,” he went out on a high note Saturday with a great story about a woman named Stacey Stevens, whose 19-year-old son Matthew was struck and killed by a hit-and-run driver last September in Neosho. The story focused on Stacey Stevens’ relentless push for a legislative bill that would increase the penalty for drivers in fatal hit-and-run cases from up to four years in prison to up to 10 years. Accompanying the front-page story was a moving photo of Stevens standing beside, and holding, a memorial cross bearing Matthew’s name.
Burnes wrote:
When it comes to paying for their actions after killing someone, hit-and-run drivers — responsible for a fifth of pedestrian fatalities nationwide — get away with too much, she believes. By leaving the scene, they deprive investigators of crucial evidence, including a timely interview and the chance to determine impairment.
**
All 10 of the departing employees are leaving The Star a poorer place. Most — maybe none — will be replaced…I wish each of them a good new beginning, whatever they do and wherever they go. And I hope they all continue contributing, in some manner, to progress in Kansas City.
JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC 
Nice commentary. Fewer Star people who will expose the next Pendergast which will inevitable happen and tv is ill-equipped to do.
The five who are leaving with no buyout — and what a cruel and heartless thing for the company to do to them — are among the most tireless, most loyal, most diligent newsroom employees The Star has ever had. They are all unsung heroes in keeping the paper going and in working to uphold journalistic standards. They will be deeply missed, and I wish them a bright new future, in jobs where they’re appreciated! (I’ve already commented on the significant loss The Star is incurring with the five who took the buyouts.) Ye gods, what a heartless profession this has become — and one that’s even more essential than ever — just look at the travesty of this year’s presidential campaign season!!! I am deeply saddened.
Hear, hear!
The press room is on 26 not 29.
It is now, but it wasn’t then.
To correct Karen, the people laid off got the same severance as the voluntary buyouts
Your farewell to loyal, outstanding Kansas City Star employees is moving, Jim.
So is that of Karen Brown, who is also greatly missed at 18th & Grand.
I hope whoever “notjimmycsays” is, is correct in stating that those laid off got the same severance as those who took the buyout. There is no camaraderie like that found and enjoyed among Kansas City Star employees. And that camaraderie is something McClatchy cannot kill. It will go on, always.
Laura
Thanks, Laura. That’s expressed with your usual empathy for others and loyalty to our beloved newspaper.
Dear Laura, your “star” shines bright wherever you are! And I, too, hope those laid off got the same severance. Heaven knows they’ve earned it!
I knew Shelly from the KCPT show and the Star. She will truly be missed as will the other members of The Star. Should we just give up and start a reality show using Star employees since we can’t seem to get comprehensive coverage of the region anymore?
You know I keep thinking about the reason I read the KC Star. It’s because of good reporters who are also good writers – I enjoy the human interest stories and local government stories that we will not read anywhere else. And the other reason is for the editorials and opinion pieces. I ALWAYS read Barbara Shelley’s columns. I have been a long-time KC Star subscriber and I want them to be successful. But computers don’t write stories – people do. How many people can they let go while still producing a valuable product?
That is the question we past and present employees are asking ourselves, Kate.
Maybe it is time for the Banyan Project (http://banyanproject.coop/) to expand into KC and take advantage of all the experienced, knowledgeable writers in our community to cover local news in particular?
Thanks, Walt. I’d love your idea, both as Banyan’s founder and as someone whose life is rooted in Kansas City and whose career is rooted at 1829 Grand. I began as a summer intern on The Times, left for a year, came back as a young Times editor, left for a long time, and returned as managing editor of The Times. That was weird and ended badly. But I love Kansas City and The Star is in my bones. It’s terribly painful to watch it fading to dark.
Well, I’ll be damned…A notable voice from the past — Tom Stites, managing editor of The Kansas City Times for a few years in the 1980s and before that an editor at both The New York Times and the Chicago Tribune.
…I didn’t know about the Banyan Project. The project’s website says it “aims to strengthen democracy by pioneering a sustainable and easily replicable new model for Web journalism. Banyan’s mission is to help seed independent news co-ops in underserved communities across the nation and to provide them with mentorship and educational and administrative support so they can thrive and fulfill their mission of civic engagement.”
Good to hear from you, Tom, and to see you’re still going strong in journalism.
Thanks for the welcome, Jim. It’s nice to be part of this conversation.
March 2016 will go down with March 2009, when a countless number of editorial staff were laid off and all the bureaus except for Johnson County were closed, as the darkest months in the 135-and-a-half year history of The Star. Of course, I’m sure none of the McClatchy execs, including the one who used to be The Star’s publisher, are suffering.
That would be Mr. Zieman.
Yup.
And the trickle-down effect of the recent layoffs can be seen in Monday’s Star. Comics, puzzles, entertainment rolled into the main section on Monday. So let’s review – Monday effectively has only the main section and sports – barely an editorial half-page. Give it 6 months and they’ll cut down another day or so – maybe just fold up a couple of days with no paper. Death by a thousand cuts.
I am sure that the day will come when The Star stops putting out a printed edition a couple of days out of the week.
Beginning to look inevitable…I agree. The whole push is on digital — which would explain why Mi-Ai essentially washed her hands of the print product and its distribution. She left Tony Berg with one giant mess. He, too, of course, is focusing digital, but at least he understands the importance of not alienating customers. He’s probably throwing darts at her image in his basement every night — after he gets home about 10 p.m.
The saddest and most depressing aspect of the fall of The Star and newspapers is that with all the confidence, talent, and self-importance most writers look at themselves as possessing, NO leader was able to emerge with the talent to turn the institution around and lead it back up the mountain.
It’s very hard to lead an army when you turn around and find all you have is a platoon.
it would be impossible for someone in The Star to do that because the corporate folks would just loot it, but what is sad is that with all the talent that left that some didn’t band together and create an alternative news site.
Surely someone who left knows how to create a website. Do some congregating of national stuff and add in some original news stories and away you go. If Tony Botello can do it surely a dozen or so of the 1000 who left could do it. Cover the stuff The Star won’t cover. There’s certainly a lot of that to be had.
We need Stites to write up a correction: 1829 Grand? And don’t blame it on one of your sources.
That’s hilarious, Mike…I read right over that. Of course, we should take into account he wasn’t there very long…For the record, it’s 1729 Grand.
I’m blushing. My source, my own mind, knows better.
The reporters (past or present) like nothing more than to be able to correct the M.E.
Perhaps I just saw the future, and it looked a lot like today, only less. I was in Wichita last weekend, staying two blocks from the Eagle building, which is, as you know, up for sale. The hotel was supposed to have Eagle copies at the desk, but none appeared in the two days we stayed there. I didn’t see an honor box in all of downtown. On return to KC and learning of the earthquake in Wichita, I thought I’d take a look at what the Eagle had to say. Well, the web site is virtually identical to that of the Star. And the lead stories on Tuesday were mostly the same on both sites. As far as traditional newspaper content is concerned, digital simply means produced elsewhere. Yesterday, Wichita; today, K.C.; tomorrow, ??? I feel certain we haven’t seen the last of staff reductions by one means or another.
I’m very sorry to hear of this round of buyouts and wish those who left the very best in their next careers. They all seem to be quality people with a lot to offer.