Two and a half years ago, The Star proudly heralded the hiring of Colleen McCain Nelson as a company vice president and editor of the editorial page.
The lead of reporter Mark Davis’ story on Aug. 23, 2016 went like this…
“The Kansas City Star has hired Colleen McCain Nelson, a Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial writer, to lead its editorial page — just as soon as she finishes covering the U.S. presidential race for The Wall Street Journal.”
Big stuff, indeed, and until late last month everything went as smoothly as possible for Nelson and her freshly scrubbed and expanded editorial page.
But then along came what will long be known down at 16th and McGee as “the Steve Rose column.”
The column where Rose, a weekly presence on the Op-Ed page, sent in a tortured and illogical account of why the Kansas Legislature had failed to expand Medicaid and blamed it all on state Sen. Jim Denning, the Kansas Senate president.
Rose tried to conduct the character assassination anonymously, by not using Denning’s name, but Nelson rightly informed Rose the column needed attribution.
Unfortunately, that’s the only thing Nelson did right in this journalistic debacle.
In what is certainly one of the most shocking and irresponsible editing jobs I have seen in all my years in and around journalism, Nelson edited the column ping-pong style via email. The column triggered a libel suit that has The Star’s lawyers working furiously to avoid an ignominious legal loss.
…My good friend Dan Margolies of KCUR-FM, laid out the editorial recklessness in a story on his station’s website today.
Here’s how Dan described the key elements of the editing job…
In a sworn affidavit, The Star’s editorial page editor, Colleen McCain Nelson, says that Rose’s original version of the column did not identify Denning by name, instead referring to him only as “(my) Kansas Senate friend.”
Nelson told Rose that, consistent with The Star’s Code of Ethics, he needed to identify the source of the statements in his column, according to her affidavit.
Rose then responded via email: “Ok, it’s State Sen. Jim Denning of Overland Park.”
Nelson emailed Rose back and asked: “So, I can attribute all of this to Denning? Add his name throughout?”
Rose responded: “He said it all, so, yes.”
**
Colleen Nelson
Astonishingly, Nelson apparently never bothered to pick up the phone and try to resolve some very serious questions. Moreover, she knew better than anyone that Rose did not like Denning and had skewered him in print just nine months earlier.
Nelson’s journalistic instincts failed her. I can understand that she might have sent an email asking, “Who’s the source.” But when Rose wrote back it was Denning, Nelson’s hand should have been on her phone instantly.
Had Nelson picked up the phone and probed, Rose’s “story” would have collapsed. She would have killed the column; would have seen Rose was trying to blow one by her; and probably would have ended up firing him. Instead, The Star is now on total defense and is paying lawyers tens of thousands of dollars to defend a libel suit.
**
I’ve said before how much I admire Nelson and what a good job she has done rebuilding that formerly decrepit editorial page. She will probably survive this, but I imagine she and Publisher Tony Berg have had some tough discussions recently.
No matter how good you are and how many Pulitzers you’ve won, getting stories and columns right is where a paper rises or falls. We’ve all seen the other parts of The Star deteriorating, and this debacle is going to cost the editorial board and Colleen Nelson some credibility.
JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC 
“Nelson’s journalistic instincts failed her.” She does not have “journalistic instincts.” She is a hack propagandist. Her only instinct is to further her godforsaken agenda and impose it on the long-suffering people of Missouri and apparently Kansas. Rose’s column was right up her alley. They deserve each other. There is no honor or principle involved anywhere. She is unscrupulous and everyone outside your belly-button contemplating industry figured that out a long time ago.
“this debacle is going to cost the editorial board and Colleen Nelson some credibility.”
There’s an old saying that you can’t get blood out of a turnip and you can’t deprive someone of something they already don’t possess.
I know you like the new carpetbaggers at editorial, but they have been a disaster. I was often critical of the vague generalizations in Barb Shelly’s various hatchet jobs during the election season, but Nelson/Henneberger replaced those with outright lies and brazenly misleading statements.
Unfortunately for Rose, at The Sun no one could hold him accountable, and now under Nelson’s effete east coast arrogance, no one bothered. But the bottom line is that Rose lied and Nelson let him because under her guidance that’s what these high-priced snobs think they can get away with here in the boondocks.
Thanks for the comments, Lydia and John. (Had to cut you, John; comments can’t be as long as the posts.)
…Lydia, I think there’s something to what you say about the “belly-button contemplating” that goes in parts of the industry.
No problem, Fitz, just wanted you to know I wasn’t making things up. Hope you’re healing well.
This is an excerpt from yesterday’s Star article, quoting the Star’s attorney Bernie Rhodes’ legal response: “McCain Nelson’s reliance on Rose’s identification of Denning ‘was plainly reasonable,’ Rhodes said, as Denning was a known opponent of Medicaid expansion.”
Just because someone has a known position on an issue, it’s okay not to check whether the person actually made specific quotes? I’ll have to ponder that point for a while. That part of the legal response might not be persuasive to the judge.
https://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article226267150.html
I thought the article in yesterday’s paper was longer than it would have been and delved into more detail (justification?) of the Star’s Answer than if it had been any other court case.
On the other hand, there were not a lot of other articles in the shrinking paper so they must have had needed to fill space around the extra “Presidents’ Day” ads.
The last word in your post said it all: credibility. The news business is already under attack by those who practice brazen mendacity. The Star just shed 24 in buyouts, sterling veterans all, and made the offer to more than twice as many. Suicide by self starvation?