Good things continue to unfold at The Kansas City Star under the leadership of Publisher Tony Berg and the apparent loosening of purse strings by The Star’s parent company, McClatchy.
Consider:
:: On Monday, The Star announced it was fortifying the Monday print edition with more business and features coverage, plus, in the most significant step of all, it reinstated Monday’s Op-Ed page, which disappeared without notice nearly two years ago. As you know, The Star successfully pulled off a wholesale resuscitation of its editorial-page ranks early this year under the inspired leadership of new editorial page editor Colleen McCain-Nelson, who, among other things, routinely returns readers’ calls and possesses a personal warmth that five decades of previous editorial page editors lacked. (*See exception, belatedly added, in comments section.)
:: Today, The Star’s three-part, 2016 series on chronic, life-threatening problems in the fire suppression industry won second place for investigative reporting in the 83rd National Headliner Awards, a journalistic awards program that dates to 1934. The authors of the series, called “Fatal Echoes,” were longtime reporters Mike Hendricks and Matt Campbell. The upshot of the series was that scores of firefighters around the country have died needlessly partly because fire departments do not have standardized, national training standards and they are not subject to federal regulations established by any federal agency. (I praised the series back in December.)
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These developments merit applause for the hard-working people at 18th and Grand — especially the employees who have soldiered on through a dozen or more rounds of layoffs since 2008. It is also a tribute to the 240-some employees who soon will be ushered out of the longtime headquarters building, which is being sold, and relocated across the street in the 11-year-old press pavilion.
The physical move is less of a concern to employees, of course, than continued victories, small and large, after a long fallow period under former publisher Mi-Ai Parrish and a former McClatchy leadership team that threatened to squeeze the life out of its 29 daily newspapers.
Parrish left, thankfully, in 2015, and early this year McClatchy replaced CEO Patrick Talamantes, a longtime McClatchy manager, with former Yahoo! and Earthlink executive Craig Forman, who was a McClatchy board member.
The board knew what it was doing when it replaced Talamantes, who largely seemed to subscribe to the strangulation strategy employed by his predecessor, Gary Pruitt, who engineered the buyout of the KnightRidder newspaper chain 11 years ago, at the precise moment the newspaper industry was poised to step off a cliff. (It might be more accurate to say it was being shoved off the cliff by the Internet, but, regardless, the cliff was in plain view.)
I’m not sure where — and when — an accommodation was struck between McClatchy leadership and Berg, but Berg, who took over in January 2016, started bringing younger, lower-paid editorial employees on board about a year ago. I would say 10 to 12 new editorial employees have been added during the last 15 months. It must be noted, of course, that the layoffs of higher-paid employees — including longtime deputy business editor Steve Rosen and veteran copy editor and resident poet Don Munday — have continued.
(I should also note that Berg brought a laser focus to the horrendous circulation problems that set in during Parrish’s four years of soporific neglect.)
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As I’ve noted before, the print edition, while still thin some days, has a much larger “news hole” than it did until a year or so ago. The Monday paper, which had bordered on being an airborne joke, is back to being relevant. In addition to the return of the Op-Ed page, The Star has added a Monday Business page, which, according to an Editor’s Note on Monday, will focus on “tech and consumer stories.”
Another addition to the Monday paper is a page of features content “that includes regular reviews of weekend performances and Monday Mixer, a recap of weekend entertainment news.”
The big feature story this Monday was a Tim Finn interview with a singer named Casi Joy, who is from Smithville and this week made her fourth appearance on the NBC show “The Voice.”
…Overall, good to see the upswing continue. I’m sure most former KC Star employees will join me in saying, “Keep the improvements coming.”
JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC 
Sorry Fitz, but you won’t be hearing this former Star employee saying that. I was over at my mother’s house on Saturday and a neighbor brought the paper to her. They share it because the subscription price is too f—in high for them to afford it for themselves. I think she said the full subscription rate was a mid-three-figure amount, I don’t remember. But that is unacceptable.
Yes, it’s great that The Star is hiring young reporters. I hope the paper is paying them more than they paid me. Otherwise, they’re either going to have to get second jobs or enjoy their annual vacations to Omaha. But it doesn’t fix the huge hole they have created by laying off so many seasoned and experienced reporters in recent years — Rosen, Jim Fussell, Brian Burnes come to mind.
When I was laid off in 2008, I cancelled my subscription and swore that I would never renew it as long as McClatchy owned the paper and Mark Zieman remained in a position of power with that conglomerate. It’s been more than 8 years since the paper was delivered to my house and I can’t imagine it ever happening again.
With all that said, I am very happy to see two former colleagues of mine getting that award. Both of them have been through hell and high water for the past decade but have persevered.
Nice post. It’s encouraging to see these changes and additions.
Wow — over 50 decades? That’s quite an accomplishment. I know she answered an email from my sister — at least it was her name on it.
All that being said, I can appreciate Mike’s comments, too.
Thanks, Gayle…Well put, on both the changes and Mike’s views.
…Be assured Colleen returned your sister’s email. She doesn’t have a stand-in who handles her correspondence.
Obviously, Gayle is not a right wing Christian, because they do not believe the earth existed 50 decades ago! LOL Happy week after Easter…
Still, the Star is a dinosaur. And they died out decades ago as well.
I did enjoy Colleen Hyphenated Nelson’s video on the Star online edition. Where she advocates the editorial board signing their work–except they still don’t! Hurry, Colleen. You’re the boss. Like Trump, your honeymoon is almost over.
This just in: Bill O’Reilly is leaving Fox News. Maybe the Star can get him for their Editorial Board. Or Monday wrap-up where he could critique the Sunday opinion TV shows…now that’s more entertaining that whatever lame concerts play here. Reviews after the fact are basically pointless. Just more “old news”.
But don’t phone O’Reilly today–he’s in Rome, just met with the Pope. He must need forgiveness bigly.
Woops …
Jim didn’t even catch that — unless he was being nice.
Jim:
The continuing layoffs at The Star are agonizing. And the late Jim Scott, one of the finest editorial page editors in the history of The Kansas City Star, I am sure, was a scholar and outstanding journalist, especially reporting on Russia and South America. He also was one of the kindest bosses one could hope for. He hired the first black member of the Editorial Page, Gerald Jordan, and the first woman, who was Jean Haley, I think.
Jim Scott was much beloved. When he died after battling heart problems for 26 years, several pages of the paper were dedicated to his memory and his invaluable contributions as a writer and human being.
Laura
I wondered if I was doing Jim a disservice when I wrote that line about personal warmth, Laura…So, I’ll make one exception, Jim Scott.
Thanks, Jim. Jim Scott personified the best of human decency.
I do think Colleen McCain-Nelson is doing a fine job. The editorials are livelier and more interesting.
Our 4-week subscription rate (print+digital) is $41.55. That is a ton of money to pay for a local newspaper. We also pay for digital subs for the Washington Post and the NYT which are reasonable by comparison. My husband is a die-hard paper reader, so that’s why we still subscribe. We definitely noticed the livelier Op-Ed section. Monday’s edition was pitiful, not worth the paper it was printed on.
I’m thinking about adding The Washington Post online edition to my line-up, which is The Star and NYT, online and print. They have been out front on a lot of big stories during the campaign and in the early months of the Trump administration. Plus, they’ve got Margaret Sullivan as their media columnist. She was public editor at NYT for three years. Top notch.
I signed up for the Post last fall when they had a $99 for a year special. Their app for Android is well done, but I notice the big breaking stories are not updated as quickly in the app version as the New York Times. You have to have the alerts set up to read breaking news from the alert. The Post app still refers to “editions” so I don’t think it’s as flowing and updating as the NYT app. The Post app just added the ability to read reader comments which matches the NYT app. I read the Star and NTY (both print and online) and the Post. For the latest DC news, the Post still slightly beats the NYT.
Jim Scott was a gentleman and a scholar. I fondly recall sitting in his book-lined office and engaging in conversations with him. Such as when he told me about the Russian writer and journalist Vasily Grossman, whose work included reporting on World War II. Jim did not have to spend time talking to a business desk reporter such as myself, but he always made me feel welcome.
We’ve got some serious news hounds here, with Olathe Reader and Bill Hirt on the leading edge.
Tony Berg also publishes both his office and personal number. That’s a good thing and a good sign. Judy Thomas just did an outstanding update on her previous investigation of the Boilermaker’s union, so there are some good signs on the reporting front (although I don’t think The Star did enough to promote Thomas’ lengthy piece).
Unfortunately, editorial continues to be a joke. A few days ago Dave Helling published a Tweet that showed that he doesn’t understand the difference between a flat tax and a sales tax and just yesterday the Board published an unsigned editorial (weren’t they going to do away with those) declaring that the failure to expand Medicaid resulted in the closing of St Francis Hospital. Unfortunately for them, John Hanna published an article which contained a statement from one of the hospital’s board members stating “Had we had Medicaid expansion, we’d still be where we are now.”
Yael Abouhalkah continues to demonstrate why dumping him was a good choice. Yael posted a Tweet from Politico claiming that Trump had taken a hat from some kid and then thrown it into the crowd. Show from a different angle, Trump had taken the hat, autographed it and thrown it back to the same kid. Still waiting on a correction from Yael.
The Star tried to make something out of the hat flip the other day, and I didn’t bother to read the story. It looked like a sucker headline to me. After reading your comment, John, I Googled the video, and it was completely harmless. Trump signs the hat, and, smiling, flips it in the air in the general direction of the kid who sent it forward. Then he goes on to sign the next hat…At signing lines and crowd-rope events, the signed object always finds it way back to the rightful owner. Trying to make a big deal out of that — painting him as some sort dirty trickster — is ridiculous.
That’s my feeling. I would love to support The Star and the idea of being the community watchdog. But I won’t give them a dime until I see some fairness in the editorial page, and frankly, the “news” sections. I don’t care if they criticize Brownback and Trump, but don’t pretend like Obama and Clinton are flawless. Mayor Sly James has a mixed record. The street car line is a mixed success. Tell a complete story.
Quit writing cheerleading fluff features gushing about Greg Orman, James Thompson, Chris Koster and Paul Davis. And for God sake, Lee Judge’s cartoons are a waste of ink, almost as much as his baseball columns.
I need to see real change, not just shuffling the names.
I guess the baseball columns aren’t that bad. If it wasn’t for his cartoons, they probably wouldn’t bug me that much.
Every once in a while Judge has a cartoon that really hits home, but he’s definitely not in the upper echelon or national cartoonists.
Credit where it’s due, when Lee had a blog (right before they fired him) and readers could give him hell for his drawings, he took every bit of it as well as he dished it out and never censored any of them.
i’m sorry but i see more bad things developing at the star. listen to the readers and you may hear many more negatives. i had a friend put a star paper in front of me and say: “take a look at the junction city daily union.” he noted that a gust of wind would blow it off the porch it was so small. a woman at a restaurant stopped by and asked if we all had read the “monday newsletter.” those are shots, my friends. the news hole is shrinking. they are stripping sections and transferring them to the regular news spots. all that does is lessen space. check out the sports space. terrible. look at at the star billing — $500 a year to subscribe. you pay more and get less. the daily on-street price is $2. customer service is out-sourced; carriers lack timely service. the motto seems to be: yesterday’s news tomorrow. the new orleans times-picayune went to three days a week publishing. is this what the star is shooting for? whatever. you see progress; i see regression.
You said it very well, Robert. I am only hanging on for the obituaries. When they remove those from the paper, that’s the end for me.
Dr. Howery — When you say you’re “hanging on” for the obituaries, it makes me wonder if you might be gone from this mortal coil by the time The Star drops obituaries.
The obits are a significant source of income — they’re essentially classified ads — and The Star will not be killing a goose that is laying golden eggs.
“Cutting the chord” is a factor in entertainment. Major League Baseball will allow ESPN to air their weekday afternoon show “Intentional Talk.”
The post highlights are being to social media.
There streaming plans offered by the wireless companies. I’ll wait for AT&T to announce the details. It’s coming within weeks.
AT&T also will own Time Warner (not the part you call cable, internet or local telephone service), by Labor Day.