For the dwindling number of us who like to hold the daily Kansas City Star in our hands and go through the paper leisurely, Saturday’s paper was one that had a lot to offer.
The edition was a good example of why newspapers, beat down though they are, often deliver more intellectual stimulation than the Internet.
One reason I think the print edition is more satisfying than the Internet is the juxtaposition of illuminating photos with well-written stories. Of course, photos are all over the Internet, too, but for some reason, the photo-print combination is more compelling when you’re holding the newspaper and letting the words and images settle slowly.
The importance of the image-word linkage was most evident in Saturday’s lead stories — side-by-side reports by senior political reporter Dave Helling on the final days of campaigning by Roy Blunt and Jason Kander.
Kander, a Democrat, and Blunt, the Republican incumbent, are locked in an epic battle for one of Missouri’s two U.S. Senate seats. (The other seat, held by Democrat Claire McCaskill, is not up for election this year.) Helling spent a day or two with each of the candidates last week and provided readers with an intriguing look at the approaches the two men have been taking as they near the wire.
The contrast between the two was clearly evident in the side-by-side photos taken by Star photographer Allison Long. The photo of Kander shows him talking on the phone after stepping off his campaign bus in Warrensburg. Kander’s name is printed in huge letters on the side of the bus, and in the photo his head is centered beneath those big letters.
Kander is wearing distressed jeans, a long-sleeved dress shirt and casual shoes. His left hand is on his belt buckle. The picture reflects Helling’s story of a candidate who is focused but seemingly confident and at ease.
The photo of Blunt also depicts him as composed and confident. He is standing on a stage, in a warehouse in Springfield, speaking to and pointing toward a group we cannot see. He is wearing cuffed, gray slacks, a blue or gray dress shirt and what looks to me like tan cowboy boots. Large “Roy for Missouri” signs surround him.
The opening quotes in both stories reflect the candidates’ contrasting styles as Election Day hurtles toward them. Helling quotes Kander, 35, as saying: “There is a new generation stepping forward right now. It is a generation that is more focused on ideas than on ideology.”
The words make him sound like a political science teacher smoking a pipe and exchanging high-minded thoughts with colleagues.
Blunt, on the other hand, sounds like a colonel brandishing a sabre and preparing for battle.
“Religious liberty is at stake,” he tells the warehouse crowd. “The Second Amendment is at stake. Freedom of speech is at stake. Our rights and liberties are at stake.”
With those strong beginnings, Helling effectively grabbed the readers’ attention and set the stage for an additional half-page of text on an inside page.
…Good stuff. These are the types of stories that make newspapers very relevant, even in the electronic age. And stories like those are one reason I won’t be giving up my printed edition until it isn’t printed any longer.
**
While a good news story still gets me pumped up, I am strangely indifferent about the diminution of The Star’s editorial page.
On Facebook, former editorial page writer Barb Shelly has been hammering away at Publisher Tony Berg for decimating the editorial page and making a hard right political turn in recent weeks. (The paper has endorsed at least three Missouri Republicans — Blunt in the Senate race, Josh Hawley in the attorney general’s race and Jay Ashcroft in the secretary of state’s race — who probably would not have been endorsed if Berg had not fired longtime editorial writer Yael Abouhalkah a few weeks ago.
But this is how things can go when a big, once-stable organization — any organization, not just a major metropolitan daily — has become a shadow of its former self. The Star is down to probably fewer than 500 employees, where it once employed more than 2,000. The once-pulsating newsroom, I understand, now resembles the clubhouse of a baseball team that has lost 10 in a row.
I have watched this paper lose its verve over the last decade or so, and it just isn’t coming back. All momentum is gone. And, so, while I still love to read the paper, I’m through wringing my hands. And you know what? I think a lot of readers feel the same way. Among my circle of friends, I don’t hear a lot of complaining about The Star. I used to. But many of them have canceled their print subscriptions, either because of spiraling subscription prices or the downturn in quality, or both.
Many of those who haven’t abandoned the print edition are like me: They sit down with it, read and enjoy whatever good reporting and good photography remain, and then toss it aside and get on with their day.
JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC 
I’m actually thinking of subscribing. I don’t expect a newspaper to toe my party line, but I do expect them to act like an honest broker in the process of conveying information. If I want propaganda, I’ll write it, thank you.
Good journalism is worth its weight in gold. The only time journalists have ever swayed my opinion is when they have laid out the facts on both sides and left the decision up to me.
Some people have a knack of setting aside their personal feelings when they write and those are the folks who make good journalists. People who try and hold themselves out as journalists while they push their own political agenda are worth nothing. They’re liars and frauds and I’m delighted to see them being called out this cycle.
I always felt that Dave had a lot of potential, but never the adult supervision to bring it to its full fruition. Hopefully, Mr. Berg brings it out in him.
As for Barb Shelly, pffft, who cares. She was nothing when she wrote for The Star and she’s nothing now.
Barb was a great asset to The Star…You’ve had your say on that, and now I’ve had mine.
No writer has a bigger, unchecked ego…and blind-loyalty to an angry-right wing, scripted, point of view than John “Posts the same-old-rant-on-every Blog” V. There IS a thin line between our loves and hates…and J.V. is so hateful to his politically opposite doppelgängers, I wonder if giving and accepting RESPECT isn’t part of his issue.
“Decimate”:To reduce by one-tenth.
Barb Shelly’s writing is–and always has been–brilliant and fearless. Newspaper reporters don’t come any better. Mr. Altevogt “knows nothing” and is “nothing now”.
Laura Hockaday
Reporter, Kansas City Star 1962-2000
I don’t know Mr. Altevogt personally. But I will dispute the claim that he “knows nothing” and “is nothing”. Having an angry right-wing ideology doesn’t mean you lack knowledge. I’m guessing that he has plenty of it. Temperament? Well uh … let me just say that I strongly disagree with many of the things he has to say, especially his remarks about Barb Shelly.
I would expect nothing less than those who worked with Barb to support her and I appreciate this blog precisely because it presents the opportunity for those with differing viewpoints to present them respectfully to one another.
My only complaint is that there is often not enough dialog here. Thanks to Fitz once again for letting me express opinions here I know he disagrees with vigorously. Strongly held opposing viewpoints are what prevent us all from becoming Fascists.
But it’s not just the Star. Here’s another thought that probably has occurred to a lot of us….
https://reassociated.press/2016/10/24/stop-just-blaming-the-internet-for-killing-newspapers-start-blaming-editors/
Yes, I will admit it. I am ink-stained daily and plan to stay that way — unless of course, I outlast my regular purveyors of ink. Holding and reading the print copies of the KC Star and the Wall Street Journal are ritually civilized activities (the NYT too, but only digitally) for moi. I even miss the Kansas City Times!
I did have to laugh about Mr. Berg’s “hard turn to the right” on the editorial front. Good gracious people, the man has to try something different. And it’s easy to make the case that the Star’s editorial makeup — Abouhalkah, Shelly, Diuguid, et al, ouch! — were foot soldiers in the decline of the paper and its appeal and value to readers, and existing and potential advertisers; especially those with more traditional views of life and liberty in River City.
I’m certainly not arguing with Berg’s license to turn the car in any direction he wants; he’s the boss. He reports only to McClatchy headquarters in Sacramento, and newspaper conglomerates typically don’t interfere with publishers on the editorial front. They just want to see a good ROI.
Thought provoking article, Gene, thanks for sharing.
The last time I subscribed to a newspaper was The Kansas City Kansan when Roy Teicher was editor and Rebecca Shelton was about his only reporter and they kicked ass. Dick Bond pulled Guarantee bank’s advertising and carol Marinovich threatened to “bury the Kansan” and did when even after firing Teicher and having Shelton go on an “I really didn’t mean it” tour of the UG she pulled the paper’s legals.
Good journalism is an attitude and sitting around the office with your thumb up your ass reading press releases isn’t it. If Berg does anything it should be to have every reporter’s phone number listed on the web site again. Right now it’s almost impossible to feed them a breaking story, even if you wanted to.
I don’t know about listing the reporters’ phone numbers, but readers should certainly be able to call the paper and ring a reporter’s line, even if it goes to voice mail every time. The Star has the dial-by-last-name directory (which, you’ll recall, I goaded Berg to get fixed earlier this year), and that’s good. The reporters’ email addresses are also listed under their bylines, so readers should be able to reach reporters one way or another.
Now, as to whether reporters respond, that’s another story. I think many big-city newspaper reporters, all over the country, have assumed a bunker mentality — reflecting the state of the industry — and tend to shun contact with readers and others. Many don’t want to spend hours every day listening to criticism, and I wouldn’t either.
Journalism is not dead. It’s just lost and a bit malnourished somewhere in the Internet forest. The newspaper industry, however, is dead. It has been for some time. Like Caesar, it was stabbed to death by its own ranks. The Star—like many large U.S. metropolitan dailies—became a repository for mediocrity, starting as far back as the mid-80s. Particularly when it came to newsroom management. The story link offered up by Gene (with whom I had the pleasure of working with on the Business Desk) is spot on. The Internet didn’t do newspapers in. The culprits were management—both upper and mid-level editors—who, through a combination of hubris and ignorance, chose to either disregard or outright dispel the delivery system of what has become The Information Age. The Internet. Instead of embracing the conflict, and helping to establish standards and positions in the new public information arena, those same editors—and I blame the newsroom side, not the business/advertising side—laughed it off. I distinctly remember having this same conversation with a former Star publisher back in late 90s. His response was to wave his hand in the air and say “It’ll (the Internet) never stick.” Well, it did, and he didn’t. Thus began the long exit march of Star publishers, editors, reporters, photographers, etc., etc., etc.
As the Star’s parade of departures has relentlessly drudged on over the years I have tried to balance my feelings: despair for my former friends and compatriots; schadenfreude for the culprits. As of late, to be sure, my feelings have tilted more toward the latter than the former as the last tumors of mediocrity were excised from the body Star. No names, but to be fair some of the departed were good at what they did and deserve to be part of whatever journalism Phoenix rises from the ashes.
Unfortunately, that ash pit is about to get a little bigger. There is widespread speculation in the industry that following the end of the 2016 election cycle (tonight) that many newspapers will begin a big push to reduce headcount by the end of the year. By this time next year, it’s very likely few newspapers will be publishing print editions every day. Dailies adieu!
Jim plucked the chord when he wrote, “the dwindling number of us who like to hold the daily Kansas City Star in our hands and go through the paper leisurely.” I am one of those, though my tactile choice is The New York Times. We are Baby-boomers. And we are dwindling along with the demand for print newspapers.
I have four, college-educated children who grew up in a household where it was common to have a half dozen different newspapers about the place. They don’t read newspapers. They will never subscribe to one. Yet, they voraciously scour the Internet for information, albeit sports, fashion and gossip are at the top of their searches. Still, they and their friends (generation I suspect) don’t balk at paying for content. Unfortunately, the content they are willing to shell out for tends to be HBO, Netflix and ESPN. This, however, is likely to change as they age and realize that there are better formats to get their political and social insights from than a comedian.
Journalism isn’t dead, it’s just too focused on the trees. It’s time for it to get its collective shit together, find its compass and get the hell out of the forest.