I pound The Star a lot, but I think it’s clear my biggest beef is with its corporate owner, McClatchy. Most daily papers in the U.S. have depreciated and struggled with the overall downturn of the newspaper industry, but I have a particular, grating dislike for McClatchy because of what has happened to my and your daily paper under its watch.
But there are some good things taking place at The Star. Recently, for example, the paper has begun adding small bio boxes about the writers of local stories. Accompanying the text are photos of the writers and, in some cases, their phone numbers.
This is a small change, but it helps personalize the connection between reader and writer. I don’t know if it’s a McClatchy idea or a Star idea, but it’s refreshing, and I hope it helps The Star and McClatchy with their difficult transition from print to digital.
Here are several examples of the bio boxes that have begun appearing…
Cronkleton
Robert A. Cronkleton gets up very early in the morning to bring readers breaking news about crime, transportation and weather at the crack of dawn. He’s been at The Star since 1987 and now contributes data reporting and video editing.
Joe Robertson specializes in reporting on criminal and social justice. He works to tell the stories behind the stories, while covering breaking news of all kinds.
Tony Rizzo covers federal and state courts for The Kansas City Star, where he has been a reporter for more than 30 years. He is a Kansas City native and veteran of the U.S. Army.
Rice
Glenn E. Rice covers crime, courts and breaking news for The Kansas City Star, where he’s worked since 1988. Rice is a Kansas City native and a graduate of the University of Central Missouri.
Katy Bergen covers Kansas education for The Kansas City Star. She is a graduate of the Missouri School of Journalism.
Lynn Horsley reports on Johnson County for the Kansas City Star, focusing on government, politics, business development and battles over growth and change in the county. She previously covered City Hall in Kansas City for 19 years and has a passion for helping readers understand how government affects their lives
Mark Davis writes about business for The Kansas City Star with attention to Sprint, investing, the economy and scams. He has been a winner and finalist in national competitions held by the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing.
Kite
Allison Kite reports on City Hall and local politics for The Star. She joined the paper in February 2018 and covered Midterm election races on both sides of the state line. She holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism with minors in economics and public policy from the University of Kansas.
Gary Bedore covers all aspects of Kansas basketball for The Star — the current team as well as former players and coaches and recruiting. He attended KU and was born and raised in Chicago, as well as Lisle, Ill.
Alex Schiffer has been covering the Missouri Tigers for The Star since October 2017. He came in second place for magazine-length feature writing by the U.S. Basketball Writers Association in 2018 and graduated from Mizzou in 2017.
Lynn Worthy covers the Kansas City Chiefs and NFL for The Star. A native of the Northeast, he’s covered high school, collegiate and professional sports in various regions of the country. He’s won awards for sports features and sports columns.
Pryor
Brooke Pryor covers the Kansas City Chiefs for the Kansas City Star, where she works to give readers a deeper understanding of the franchise and the NFL through daily stories, game coverage, and player profiles. She attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and grew up in Winston-Salem, N.C.
Jesse Newell — He’s won an EPPY (Editor & Publisher award) for best sports blog and previously has been named top beat writer in his circulation by AP’s Sports Editors; has covered KU sports since 2008. His interest in sports analytics comes from his math teacher father, who handed out rulers to Trick-or-Treaters each year.
Pete Grathoff — From covering the World Series to the World Cup, Pete has done a little bit of everything since joining The Star in 1997. He writes about baseball and has a quirky blog that augments The Star’s coverage of area teams.
Kerkhoff
Blair Kerkhoff has covered sports for The Kansas City Star since 1989.
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Not much has to be said about Blair…Just about every Star reader knows who he is.
JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC 
I didn’t like having our phone numbers attached to our stories. It allowed too many kooks to call us, which was an absolute waste of time.
I disagree on that…It’s been too difficult for readers to reach reporters in recent years. You’ve got to know the main phone number and then dial by name — hoops most people won’t jump through.
Most callers have good information, legitimate gripes or just interesting takes on stories. Gotta get out of that bunker mentality.
Providing the phone number gives the appearance of access, but these days no one answers his or her phone anymore–unless you recognize the number on caller ID and want to take the call, you let it go to voicemail (where you encourage them to send an email.) That effectively screens the cranks.
I understand that reporters should not work in a bunker, Jim, but Mike also makes some good points. Having your phone number attached to your story was a mixed blessing when I worked at the Star. Yes, it could lead to good news tips and dialogue.
But when you’re on deadline it adds a lot pressure if someone calls and wants you to listen to every stream-of-consciousness thought that pops into their head for the next hour, and some folks don’t like to be told you’re too busy to talk to them right now.
I think getting lots of phone calls through the day would be especially challenging to today’s reporters, with all the production and “click” quotas they are faced with. In my opinion, e-mail is the best way to go. Of course, reporters should still give their phone numbers to valuable sources, and people they are trying to develop as sources..
Just for clarification, “Mike” is a different Mike than Mike Rice. So we’ve got two votes against phone numbers (Rice and Karash); one vote for phone numbers (me); and one who seems ambivalent.
So, I’ve got a call in to Don Hall Jr. to see what policy he wants to implement as far as phone numbers after he has bought this newspaper. I’ll let you know what he says…
What Julius said. Was also reminded of Julius when you wrote about Marso’s difficulty getting a story published because of lack of support from the Star in the previous column. This is one of my biggest pet peeves about The Star, they have the talent and the knowledge to cover events, but often don’t because management spikes the topic or otherwise screws up the story.
I can recall one major story involving the Health Care Foundation that I knew Julius knew and cared about (and could have hit it out of the park) but didn’t write about. I then found out that a respected local doc also wrote a letter to the editor about the same topic and was told that they wouldn’t publish it for reasons of “clarity” and then I understood why Julius hadn’t written about it. So often reporters catch flak for a crappy headline, story placement in the paper, material edited out of the story (or added to a story) by editors and other factors that are beyond their control.
Marso’s problem wasn’t getting a story published; it was not getting the full story because management is too cheap to sue the VA to get the documents that would have enabled him to write a more complete story — and months earlier.
I appreciate receiving an email response from a writer and I think it adds an intimacy to the reporter/reader relationship. Email, fine (dump the cranks), phone numbers are ridiculous. We need some boundaries. And you guys need to establish the boundaries, because a minority of the public will never do so.
That’s the discouraging aspect of email and texting — as handy as they are — many people don’t want to, or don’t bother to, pick up the phone and talk to someone, even close friends.
Shortly before I left The Star in 2008, my colleague Bill Graham drew a weekend assignment to cover a Sarah Palin appearance somewhere in the metropolitan area. She had just been named John McCain’s running mate. Bill, like he always did, wrote a fair and balanced piece about her appearance. No spin. The next day, he was bombarded with phone calls from angry far-right conservative readers who found offense with everything he wrote about the appearance. They simply wanted to pick a fight with a member of the “librul media.” That is just one reason why I never approved of reporter’s phone numbers being attached to his or her article. And with our country more polarized now than it was a decade ago, I can’t imagine how worse these nut cases are.
Yes, what we want are calls from people who agree with what we said and from “nice” conservatives like John Altevogt, who tell us very nicely (the liberal media) why we’re full of shit.
Journalism is a high calling. Society depends on journalists to be the honest brokers who help us sort out truth from bullshit and when journalists deviate from that formula people pursue the crap that simply reinforces their own views (stupid people do that anyway) hence leading to polarization.
No one is above critique, but I have always tried to be fair. That said, I’m not perfect either.
Yes, and who can spell liberal.
Just have the callers leave messages with the switchboard operator. Oh, wait …
Don’t worry, Julius, I’m going to talk to Junior (Don Hall, that is) about reinstating the switchboard operator after he buys the paper.
John Altevogt, you may not be perfect, but you do know some great places to eat lunch.
John, you may not be perfect, but you do know some great places to eat lunch.
Thank you, Jim – keep up the good work!