So far, The Kansas City Star’s factual coverage of the Yordano Ventura tragedy is wanting.
Sure, columnist Vahe Gregorian, whom The Star dispatched to the Dominican Republic, did a good job of tracking the lead-up to the funeral and related events, and photographer John Sleezer, who’s also there, has been delivering good photos and video.
It was a good idea to send those two, but The Star screwed up, in my opinion, by not sending one other person — an experienced reporter.
And I don’t mean a sports reporter, I mean a news reporter.
Instead, The Star has had Royals’ beat writer Rustin Dodd sitting at his desk here in Kansas City trying to sort out what happened in the early hours of Sunday morning in the Dominican Republic.
As we all know, there are plenty of questions about what happened, including:
:: Was Ventura alive when people first got to him after his Jeep went off the road and flipped onto its side?
:: Was he robbed of cash and perhaps his World Series ring while he was dying or after he died?
:: And what the heck was he doing leaving a party about 4 a.m. or after and embarking on a relatively long drive, on mountain roads, in the fog?
I’m not asking for perfect answers right now to all those questions; the answers to at least a couple should unfold in due time. But having an actual reporter on the scene — preferably one who speaks Spanish — would help get to the answers, and perhaps unearth new ones.
In addition, there is one important question that we should have had the answer to by now, but haven’t for want of good basic reporting:
:: Exactly where was Ventura going and how long should it have taken him to get to his destination?
On that key point, Rustin Dodd’s reporting has been muddled and perhaps inaccurate. He reported in Tuesday’s paper that Ventura was intending to travel “about 80 miles” — from the province of San Jose de Ocoa “toward Cibao.”
I went to Google maps today to try to get an idea of his possible route.
If Ventura was going from San Jose de Ocoa (bottom right on the map) to the city of El Cibao (upper right), the trip would have been 122 miles. Google pegs the duration of that trip at 3 hours, 43 minutes. If, on the other hand, he was headed somewhere in the El Cibao Valley, the trip might have been closer to the 80 miles Dodd reported.
What we know for sure is that Ventura was an hour and 15 minutes (29 miles, according to Google) into his trip when he crashed in the town of Juan Adrian, which is not shown on the map. (And, by the way, as far as I can tell, The Star has yet to publish a map — a major omission.)
Exactly where Ventura was headed is very important because it means he might have embarked on a nearly four-hour trip, at or about 4 a.m., after being at a party that ran into the wee hours.
It would have been bad enough had he left at 4 a.m. on an 80-mile trip on mountain roads and in fog. But if, indeed, it was a 122-mile, nearly four-hour trip, it casts even more serious question on Ventura’s judgment. (Not to mention the fact he wasn’t wearing a seatbelt.)
**
In any event, The Star would have better served its readers if management had sent an experienced news reporter to the Dominican Republic Sunday. We look to sports writers to tell us things like how fast Ventura could throw a baseball and how he gets along with his teammates. But we don’t look to them to sort out the facts of a news story with many tentacles.
If Star editors made a decision not to send a news reporter, they made a mistake. If they did propose sending a reporter but were rebuffed by upper management because of the cost, upper management made a mistake.
To paraphrase the late Chicago Cubs announcer Harry Caray, it could have been…it should have been….a home run! But, alas, the ball came down at the warning track.
JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC 
Oh, great, now you have video ads that are next to impossible to get rid of.
Did you happen to notice one of the stories that pops up under “Related?” (“Yordano…Indifferent, self-centered and poisonous to the Royals”)
Like the toxicology results, some of your queries may become known in time. Finding someone who might know why he was traveling that distance (if, indeed, he even was) may have seemed a larger, more expensive task than the Star was willing to undertake. Or, maybe they decided that just the fact that he’s gone is story enough.
Btw — in your piece on President Trump (that still sounds weird), did you intentionally leave off the close quotes on the two quotes at the beginning?
I didn’t notice that particular pop-up ad, Gayle.
As for the expense, if they were going to send two people, why not send a third person — a real reporter? And I should have said a reporter, preferably, who speaks Spanish.
(On those quotes, they were indented in what is called a “quote box.” The indentation along with the large quotation marks at the beginning signal to the reader that the whole paragraph is a quote.)
Jim — I remember Casey saying, “I want to know the color of the victim’s underwear.”
My students are dumbstruck by that statement, but it seems to me that’s what you are asking for.
Good job.
That’s funny, Repps. I never heard him say that. (We’re talking about the late and longtime city editor Donald D. (Casey) Jones, as erudite a journalist as you would ever encounter. Was widely read, a patron of the Nelson Art Gallery, a student of the King’s English…)
Yes, the Ventura story cries out for more detail, not on the funeral or the family’s reaction or the presence of several Royals, but of just what the heck happened that night and morning…
Today’s (Wednesday’s) paper has stories and photos covering nearly five full pages, with most of the coverage focusing on the funeral and the involvement of Ventura’s teammates. There is only one story — again, written by Rustin Dodd in Kansas City — about the actual crash and what preceded and followed.
It also appears, from the co-byline on the funeral story, that The Star has indeed finally sent another reporter to help out. Her name is Maria Torres — whom I’ve never heard of — and judging from her surname, she might well be a Spanish speaker. She got second billing on the funeral-story byline, with columnist Vahe Gregorian. She also shared a byline on Dodd’s story about the crash, so she might be working on that aspect of the story. If The Star sent a Spanish speaking reporter, that’s good, but it was also two days late. And I’m dubious about Torres’ level of experience. If The Star had sent a non-Spanish speaking but experienced reporter, it would have been easy enough to hire a translator.
There is a map on-line. Maybe not as detailed as you would like, but a map nonetheless.
I would be happy if you could give me a link to a map on The Star’s website or just tell me where it is; I sure can’t find one.
By the way, what’s important is not what I like but what serves the readers well.
The Star announced the hiring of Maria in June. Here’s the write-up:
Maria Torres has joined The Star as a digital and social media editor. She is a graduate of the University of Georgia, where she majored in journalism. She had an internship as an associate reporter for MLB.com, where she covered the Miami Marlins baseball team. She also has led the Henry (Ga.) Herald sports department and held a copy editing post in Lakeland, Fla.
Thank you, Kurt…Great information.
I too was frustrated by no map appearing in any news stories. I’m not familiar in any way with the Dominican Republic and had no idea until this week how mountainous it is.
Another peev, and this is directed at the TV news stations and sports talk shows, but I wish that they would refrain from the syrupy intro music that leads into their coverage of this tragedy. It is so cheesy and manipulative. As if we really need to be reminded of how tragic this is.
Good grief, The Star doesn’t have a bi-lingual reporter covering either Turner, Argentine or KCMO’s westside, but you want them to have one lying around to send to the Dominican Republic? Please.
As for Casey’s patronage, if you’re not a frequent visitor to the Nelson and also the Kauffman Center I don’t know what the hell’s wrong with you. Most cities would die to have an art gallery of that quality and a symphony as phenomenal as ours and to not visit them is simply folly.
My favorite painting (which could be extrapolated to cover poor journalism) shows a Middle Ages doctor trying to figure out what ails his patient when all around are the signs of his evening of drunken debauchery. I don’t think it’s out now, but you’d have to be there for several days to figure that out. Thanks for letting me provide that brief commercial message, but apparently you haven’t hit the big time yet where we get pop-ups.
Like I said, Mel, you can always hire a translator. Chump change. Couple hundred bucks would get that.
The map on-line is in the story “More details…” by Rustin Dodd and Maria Torres. (Sorry, I don’t know how to link.)
I only said that because you’re the only one I’m aware of mentioning the lack of a map.
You must not be keeping up with all the comments…
Seems as though I’ve gotten on your bad side today. I’ll shut up now.
Okay, besides you and Mr Rice.
Found the map…Doesn’t illuminate a thing about where Ventura was, where he started, where he was headed, etc.
Just don’t want you — and other readers — to be content with coverage with obvious omissions. Why can’t they get a decent map? I found one; it took about 20 minutes, but what’s that when you’ve got a story this big???