The payday loan guys who operated under our noses for years, bilking people throughout the country of hundreds of millions of dollars, are now getting the big squeeze they have long deserved.
A couple of the biggest operators — Scott Tucker and Richard Moseley Sr. — are facing criminal charges in New York, and on Friday a federal judge in Nevada ordered Tucker, a Rockhurst High graduate, and others to pay a massive amount of money to the Federal Trade Commission to resolve an FTC civil lawsuit.
On the front page of Sunday’s Kansas City Star, reporter Steve Vockrodt reported that the fine (if that’s what you call it) was nearly $1.3 billion.
Now, the reaction many readers had to that story was probably something like, “Wow, that’s a lot of money!”
Of course, it is…But the next question I had — and I expect many other readers, too — was “How much money might Tucker and the other defendants actually end up paying to the FTC?”
Seldom do parties who are awarded huge amounts in court cases ever see a majority of the money. There are two reasons for that. First, as the cases go up the ladder on appeal, awards often are lowered, or cases are settled. Second, most defendants, like Tucker, have squirreled away or lost much of their ill-gotten gains, making full restitution very unlikely.
And yet, reporters covering the first go-round of civil awards seldom bother to qualify the big, juicy numbers or inform readers that the initially victorious parties will never see anything close to those eye-popping amounts.
And so it was with Vockrodt. He didn’t bother, apparently, to try to contact legal experts who could have set him and the readers straight. Not only that, but Vockrodt didn’t even mention that the ruling — made by a U.S. District Court judge in Nevada — would undoubtedly be appealed. Vockrodt wrote that Tucker’s attorney “was not immediately available for comment,” but he certainly should have told readers the judge’s ruling was not the last word on the case.
…Vockrodt came to The Star in June from The Pitch, and he’s already established himself as a strong addition to the staff, especially at a time when The Star is laying off older editorial employees and replacing them with young, relatively low-paid people. But I have to say, that was lazy reporting on the Tucker story. Vockrodt did little more than regurgitate the court ruling and throw in some well-established background about the Kansas City hucksters who have shamed themselves, their schools and their families…On stories like these, reporters have to take the time to identify and contact experts and, through them, caution readers that what they see is not what the prevailing parties are likely to get.
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Two good sources have suggested that, to help fill the gaps on The Star’s depleted editorial-page staff, a familiar face could be returning to 18th and Grand. Don’t be surprised, the sources said, if Rich Hood, former vice president and editorial-page editor, rides in to help out. Somebody has to step in, we know, because last week Publisher Tony Berg laid off his primary editorial writer, Yael Abouhalkah, and a few days later the only other editorial-page writer, Lewis Diuguid, announced he, too, was leaving. The last day for both men is Friday.
Hood, who is in his early 70s, was vice president and editorial-page editor for eight years before then-Publisher Art Brisbane canned him in 2001. Hood landed on his feet, however, going on to become director of communications for the Missouri Department of Transportation and later as a top regional administrator for the EPA. He retired from the EPA about three years ago.
Since last summer, Hood has been writing editorials for The Star on a freelance basis. When I reached him at his Lenexa home on Saturday, he said he had not met with Berg about taking on a part-time or full-time role at The Star, and he declined to say if he was interested in returning in a bigger way.
If Hood does come back, it would be quite a turnabout: He was basically fired by Brisbane for setting too conservative a tone on the editorial page, and Berg is now looking for “more balance” on the page, which has been decidedly liberal since Hood’s departure.
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Cummings
Finally, a former KC Star colleague told me about a reporting episode that made me cringe. It seems that in the course of reporting a story about an incident that took place at a Kansas City Public Library event, a young Star reporter named Ian Cummings made an appointment to interview library C.E.O. R. Crosby Kemper III. According to a library official who’s tight with my friend, Cummings arrived at Kemper’s office wearing a T-shirt and jeans…I don’t know what Kemper’s specific reaction was, but Cummings and The Star sure didn’t make any points with one of our most important non-elected public officials.
JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC 
Talk about sloppy reporting…All day long yesterday the TV news anchors were ranting about Trump abusing a tax “loophole” to avoid paying any federal income tax for many years. Tax law provides for carrying forward of losses that can be deducted from later income. Anyone who chooses to pay more taxes than required by law is a fool. And it shouldn’t take Giuliani to point this out.
Another point: Trump is detestable, but that’s no excuse for the NY Times to abandon all pretense at their vaunted “fairness” by running half a dozen stories a day attacking him, with their opinion writers at the same time waxing hysterically over his very slim chance of being elected.
The return of Rich Hood? Now there’s a real story. Thanks for your reporting, Jim.
I intentionally “buried my lead” on this post, Don…Hedging, you know, in case it doesn’t come to pass.
“All day long yesterday the TV news anchors were ranting about Trump abusing a tax “loophole…”
You are correct; what the TV news anchors should have instead been ranting about was how that tax return puts paid to Trump’s endless lies regarding his self-vaunted successes as a businessman.
Of course, I might be in error on this, and will swiftly, willingly and publicly apologize, should the preponderance of Trump’s released tax documents show otherwise.
Regarding Steve Vockrodt’s story, I have learned he didn’t learn about the Nevada court filing until Saturday. It apparently went up on a website late Friday. That changes the complexion — and logical expectations — of Sunday’s story. The weekend timing would have made it difficult to identify and contact one or more expert sources. The thrust of my piece remains the same — Vockrodt should have qualified the $1.3 billion judgment — but I’m offering belated forbearance on the source aspect of the story.
Maybe he was busy cramming for KCWIR.
That show — Week in Review — is recorded on Friday, so that’s not a valid excuse. But he’s a good guy and I’m sure appreciates your forbearance, too.
Perhaps, then, he was basking in the afterglow.
Yes, I like him.
If Rich returns to the editorial page, expect massive cheers from John Altevogt and even more massive cheers from Sam Brownback. Altevogt often said that Rich was the only one who gave him fair treatment — Rich did sometimes go to bat for Altevogt, and John’s local viewpoint was the only one of its kind on the op-ed pages — and Rich was a great admirer of Brownback. I’m not saying Brownback would be immune from criticism, but he could expect a different tone, if nothing else. (And Brownback has certainly gone much farther and much more extremely to the right than he ever did while Rich was at The Star.) Before his move to the Ed Page, Rich was an outstanding political reporter for many years and he always dug for the facts. I believe that would continue. Rich spoke up and he spoke out.
Art did fire Rich — and I always thought his reasoning was based as much on personal style as on substance — but Art also began the decimation of the entire Opinion page/section. It was downsized to its current insignificance, which I hated to see happen, but that section was never one of Art’s priorities. (He also hired Hearne Christopher to write a Style section column around that same time. ‘Nuf said.)
It will be interesting to see what Tony does with the Ed Page (and op-ed, which is an equal indicator of a publisher’s priorities in the columns he decides to use), but I hope he realizes he doesn’t have a big window of opportunity. He’s gotten rid of some fine people throughout the paper, people who were also reader favorites, and he has an empty stable heading into one of the most important political events of many, many years. When readers look elsewhere to find their news and commentary, they may well decide they don’t need or want The Star anymore, even online. Once they’re gone, good luck luring them back. And the forecast for signing up new readers is even bleaker.
I got an email from Ian Cummings, who says it was incorrect that he was wearing a T-shirt and jeans when he interviewed R. Crosby Kemper III last week.
“I was wearing slacks and a polo, which we often do on Fridays,” Ian wrote.
…That’s a significant difference, and I should have verified with Ian before publishing.
At the same time, I don’t think a Polo-type shirt is appropriate for an interview with a civic leader or business person — regardless of what most reporters wear on Fridays. For covering fires, crime and other mayhem, it’s fine. But male reporters should at least carry dress shirts and dress pants in their cars and be ready to change into them as circumstances dictate. You must be able to “dress up” to the occasion. Better to play it more formal than more casual.
Jimmy, I totally agree with you. But, it’s a different world today. Remember how people used to dress on planes? Today you see outfits that I wouldn’t wear to work in the yard. It would be nice to see the pendulum start its swing back.
Right your are, Gayle, right your are.
Karen Brown’s post is a good analysis of what one can expect from Rich should he return. I disagree that Rich would play favorites with anyone. Certainly Brownback would not be subjected to the almost daily hateful screeds that Yael was producing at the end, but neither would he get any special treatment, As Karen also states correctly, Sam is not who he was in the 90’s. He has a habit of not dancing with who brung him and so you get a different Sam at every level.
Rich, like Rick Alm, another of my heroes at the Star, was indeed, among other things, a very good and conscientious investigative reporter in WYCO before moving to the editorial page. As an editor Rich was excellent to work with. In the entire time I wrote for The Star there were only two columns that did not appear when they were regularly scheduled, but both did appear once I tightened them up to Rich’s satisfaction, making them stronger on both occasions.
However, let me expand on my treatment at The Star. I was never treated unkindly by anyone. No one. The people who might have been so inclined left me alone and everyone else was friendly and helpful. The only three people who ever edited my work were Rich, Steve Winn and Rhonda Kriss Lokeman. All three were consummate professionals who made my work better. I think I only worked with two, or three different copy editors and they all made my work much better. Everyone I worked with treated my work as text to be made better, not ideas that had to be altered.
Far from fair, I was babied and pampered. While I only got $50 a column, I was allowed to sit down with the copy editors every Tuesday before my column appeared to work with them physically fitting it to the page. What appeared in the paper never misrepresented my ideas – ever. The only time I got any request to change what I was doing came from legal. They asked me to make the columns less factual to protect their status as opinion and i ignored that since I often reported on an event and then opined on it in the second half of the column. (I think that was the cause of some friction, but not sure.)
Another thing I didn’t have to pay much attention to was The Star’s style book. Part of my deal was that I was not to be limited to what I referred to as liberalism’s totalitarian speech patterns. For instance I did not call a dead baby a fetus, I called it a dead baby. My first column was on the so-called hate crimes legislation and someone changed a couple of words to make them PC. I pointed it out to Rich and told him that it embarrassed me and it never happened again.
My final column came about as a result of Rich expressing some concern that I had been unfair to David Adkins. Out of respect for Rich I delved more deeply into Adkins concerned that I had been unfair to him. That resulted in my expanding on a Ralph Nader 50 States project that had named Adkins Kansas’ poster child for political corruption. That was based on a sweetheart grant Adkins, as a legislator, sent ostensibly to his wife’s charity, YouthFriends. My research found that the money was ultimately handled by the Greater Kansas City Community Foundation which employed both Adkins and his wife.
When we were working on the column Rich said to me “If we don’t get this right, we’ll both be fired.” Well, we got it right and we still both got fired owing to the fact that Art Brisbane was very active working with the Foundation and some of its initiatives.
Let that sink in for a minute. Rich Hood, a 29 year veteran with The Star, was so devoted to the journalistic effort that he knowingly risked his job to support the work of a $50 a column writer on a project that targeted his friends (and you think he might give Sam a break? Please.). He had to have known about Art’s involvement with that bunch, indeed, I think Yael even tried to warn me off by giving me a brochure from the Foundation featuring Art’s activities there.
Even at the end I had no bitterness towards anyone. As Karen also points out, I was given a unique opportunity in a major daily newspaper and no one knew that better than i, or felt the pressure more than I to try and produce a quality product. As a result, my every other week column turned into a $25 a week salary for the better part of a year. Had Art not canned me i would have had to resign simply to get back to work. I was proud of the work I had done and what better street cred could any right wing lunatic have than to be fired by a liberal newspaper.
The following year my income increased many thousands of dollars, I was given my own radio show on Christian radio (which I dumped almost immediately) and allowed to submit articles and columns to MetroVoice the local family newspaper. I have no regrets, no bad memories and nothing but respect for Rich. The Star could do far worse than involve him in their editorial page.
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The loophole Trump’s accountant exploited isn’t that he carried forward losses but that the losses were actually absorbed by Trump’s creditors.
I’m not a journalist but I think it’s worth a news story or two.