After little more than a year, the Bill Turque “era” as KC Star City Hall reporter is over.
A Star story this week said Turque, a 40-plus-year veteran of journalism, is becoming The Star’s political editor.
Succeeding him at City Hall, one of the three most important “beats” at the newspaper (along with the Jefferson City and Topeka correspondents), is 24-year-old Allison Kite, who has been with The Star for nine months. Before that, she covered Kansas politics for the Associated Press and later the Topeka Capital Journal.
Allison Kite
Bill Turque
From what I have seen, Kite is a solid, up-and-coming reporter, and I feel sure she will do well at City Hall. At the same time, it is disappointing to see Turque, whose arrival as City Hall reporter was announced with much hoopla, moving out of the limelight. (I can tell you from experience editors are important, but once you leave reporting, you’d better prepare yourself for public anonymity.)
Turque has had some ground-breaking stories, including a September story on extensive and questionable City Council travel, and he brought to The Star a deep and distinguished background. He had previously worked at The Washington Post, Newsweek and the Dallas Times Herald. He also was a familiar name to some Kansas Citians, having worked at The Star from 1977 to 1981 early in his career.
Not only was he a “big name” when he returned to Kansas City, he knocked out another big name at City Hall — Lynn Horsley, who had covered the city with distinction and determination for nearly 20 years.
After Turque’s return, The Star’s management moved Horsley to the Johnson County beat, where it appears she is now comfortable and getting accustomed to suburban reporting. (I can tell you from experience there, too, it’s a lot different than urban reporting. After I moved from the Wyandotte County bureau to the Johnson County bureau in 1995, I never could make the adjustment from being enmeshed in big-time political battles to scrounging around for “lifestyle” stories.)
Horsley’s displacement was awkward for The Star because management had hired Turque as part of a package deal and had to find a place for him. A year earlier, in 2016, The Star had hired Turque’s wife, Melinda Henneberger, to be part of the paper’s new editorial-page team, headed by Colleen McCain Nelson. I’m sure the deal was then, “Uh, yes, I’m prepared to take the job, but what about my hubby?”
Interestingly, Nelson’s hiring also had been a package deal: Her husband, Eric Nelson, was hired to lead The Star’s digital news operation.
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Another change The Star announced in the story about Turque and Kite was that Jefferson City correspondent Jason Hancock will now cover Kansas politics as well as Missouri.
Jason Hancock
That’s a lot to bite off, and as good as Hancock is, I’m dubious about his ability to do spread his wings over Kansas and Missouri. Tapping him to handle politics in both states is another example of The Star trying to stretch its painfully reduced staff impossibly thin. It’s hard enough for one reporter to cover one big building, like City Hall, much less two states.
And, finally, The Star has thrown in the towel as far as having its own reporter covering state government out of Topeka. The paper is now shoveling that job off to Jonathan Shorman of The Wichita Eagle, another McClatchy paper.
Shorman is very good, but just as Hancock is going to have trouble extending his reach into Kansas, Shorman will find it extremely challenging to do justice to coverage of legislative developments revolving around Wyandotte, Johnson and Leavenworth counties. Residents in those counties who depend on The Star for legislative news may be sorely disappointed.
…In any event, good luck to these reporters as they try to bear up under back-breaking assignments I couldn’t have dreamed of handling when I was in my prime. I covered Jackson County government from 1971 to 1978 and City Hall from 1985 to 1995, and at both places I was one of three or four Kansas City Times and Kansas City Star reporters on those beats…I believe we also had at least two people in Jeff City and two in Topeka. My, how times have changed!
JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC 
You missed one detail that came out today. Hunter Woodall, arguably the worst political reporter in Kansas since Roger Myers fell off his last bar stool, having poisoned the well completely in Kansas, save as a PR man for the ultra left of the Democrat Party, has now been assigned to soil your beloved occupation on the Missouri side now.
Shorman, on the other hand, is head, shoulders and torso above Woodall in terms not only of credibility but also writing skill. So, that’s a plus for us (and The Star) on the Kansas side. I haven’t read enough of Hancock to form an opinion of him, but again, it would be pretty impossible to be worse than Woodall.
As for the editorial board, Berg’s experiment there is a complete failure. They have once again managed to alienate activists on both the left and the right and not because of the quality of their editorial product. I, therefore, revert to my previous position that they simply eliminate the editorial board and invest in some decent original reporting.
Lest this be considered too negative let me send kudos to Mike Mahoney, truly the dean of political journalism in Kansas City, Nick Haines and Bryan Lowry for their work on the midterms.
Henneberger.
Having an uncommon last name, I’ve always been sensitive to correct spelling.
I should have verified that. I apologize to Melinda, and I thank you, Gayle.
On the bright side, not all areas at the Star are understaffed. They have six reporters covering the Chiefs: Brooke Pryor, Lynn Worthy, Vahe Gregorian, Sam Mellinger, Blair Kerkhoff, and Pete Grathoff. And readers get thought-provoking stories like “Chiefs, NFL fans have definite opinions on Patrick Mahomes’ ketchup usage.”
Thank you, Mark, for calling our attention to the “bright side” of an otherwise gloomy situation. Maybe I’ll follow your lead and start trying to be more optimistic about the situation at 18th and Grand…I mean 16th and McGee.
Where?? Just doesn’t have the same ring, does it?
One reporter for Kansas AND Missouri politics, and six reporters for the Chiefs. Am I crazy, or is something out of balance here?
Despite having six writers on the Chiefs, they still have no Royals beat writer even with the MLB owner meetings this past week and the MLB winter meetings coming up the first part of December.
And after two years, you would think they would fix their web site and automated attendant phone system so you could set up a delivery vacation stop without sitting on phone hold for 10-20 minutes.
Tuesday I was treated when picking the Star up off the driveway of the carrier delivering another copy of Monday’s paper. Tuesday’s paper then came on Wednesday along with Wednesday’s paper. The Star still has home delivery issues – just not as bad as they were a year-year and a half ago.
I think we all know The Star doesn’t really have six reporters covering the Chiefs full time. Pryor and Worthy are the full-time beat writers, and the other four that Mark Peay mentioned drop in and out. The Chiefs are not the primary responsibilities of the other four.
I know they really don’t have six people covering the Chiefs. However, It still surprises me how little story output we are seeing from the two new Chiefs beat writers after games and during the week. I think in comparison to the prior single Chiefs beat writers like Terez Paylor and Adam Teicher (I hope I spelled both of their names right), there is just not quantity of stories being produced that they did. It seems a lot of times it is falling on Blair Kerkhoff to write the meaty story after the game.This would suggest the two beat writers are greener than the sports desk would really like and are going to need time to get up to speed.
Jim I know you listen to Soren Petro. Did you hear Blair on there today discussing the KU coaching job and how disruptive it is on people like him and Jesse Newell in their personal lives waiting on when a new coach would be named. When I heard that, I thought here is a guy who is a little weary of having to cover multiple beats, the disruption associated with it, and getting assigned everything hot that comes into the sports desk. I enjoy Blair’s writing and his time on Petro. I know he is now the senior guy on the sports staff, but I would think he doesn’t need to cover everything for them.
No, it doesn’t…To be precise, the exact address is 1601 McGee.
Like the saying goes, bloom where you are planted. A lot of things ain’t like they used to be, but Kansas City Star reporters and editors are working their tails off to produce great stories, so let’s give credit where credit is due.
Despite fervent promises their Comments feature online remains broken. How badly damaged could it be to take so long to repair? Hmmm…
Interestingly, I bought a new tablet today. I installed the Star app. Comments have now magically appeared with stories again and the latest news portion (when the app opens) actually has today’s news instead of several weeks old news like it shows on my phone and old tablet. It makes me wonder I need to delete the app on both old devices and then reinstall.
Regarding your higher-up comment about Kerkhoff, yes, there’s a lot of pressure on him to deliver on several fronts. When you spread your reporters as thin as The Star has, excessive pressure is inevitable…And, as I guess you saw, Sports Illustrated broke the story about KU about to hire Les Miles, former LSU coach. I would think Jesse and Blair are pretty bummed. (I listened to some of Petro today but missed that part.)