It’s not often that news of the death of a very well-known person can be kept quiet for more than a week, but it happened this week and last.
I learned about the death of former Walmart CEO and former Kansas City Royals owner David Glass from a story posted this afternoon on The Star’s website.
Just as surprising to me about his death — there had been no reports of ill health — was the fact that he died on Jan. 9 — eight days ago.
The Star’s report said he had died of “complications associated with pneumonia” but did not say where he died.
I presume he died in or near Bentonville, AR, his home. He was 84.
I have no idea what the Glass family had in mind when they decided to withhold news of his death, but it is, indeed, strange.
The fact that they were able to keep it quiet has a lot to do with where he lived. Northwest Arkansas, which revolves around the towns of Fayetteville, Bentonville, Rogers and Springdale, is pretty insular. Although Bentonville is home to Walmart, which Glass formerly headed, and Fayetteville is home to the University of Arkansas, Northwest Arkansas is a bit isolated.
At the same time, several people in Kansas City almost surely would have known about his death about the time it occurred. Glass had a close relationship with Royals General Manager Dayton Moore, and Glass’s son Dan has been — and still is, I presume — president of the Royals. Others who I would think would have known were John Sherman, leader of a local group that bought the Royals from Glass last year, and George Brett.
It is a mystery to me how Glass’s death got by the media. The two main organizations I would have expected to have the news last week were The Star and the Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette. But neither did.
The Star has a full-time Royals “beat” writer, Lynn Worthy. Where was he? In addition, columnists Sam Mellinger and Vahe Gregorian are well connected to Royals’ brass, and I would think someone would have tipped one of them. In fairness, they and most of The Star’s sports staff have been singularly focused on the Chiefs and their attempted run at their first Super Bowl in 50 years. Worthy, on the other hand, has no excuse: He has been covering Royals’ developments during the off season and has not been involved in Chiefs’ coverage.
In the bigger picture, the media’s inability to sniff out Glass’s death earlier could well be due to the massive contraction in the newspaper industry, particularly at the metro level. Metro papers almost everywhere are having big troubles. The Star’s owner, the McClatchy Co., is on the verge of reorganization or bankruptcy, and its focus is on its survival and what the future holds for the company itself as much as what’s going on in the world.
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Death is always sudden, but this is another instance of how time slips away…I have this mental image of Glass as an energetic, burly, craggy faced guy. But a photo I came across of him in the Royals’ dugout around the time former manager Ned Yost announced his retirement shows him to be very thin, almost emaciated.
Glass with Ned Yost and TV sports reporter Karen Kornacki.
Glass announced his intention to sell the Royals to the Sherman group for about $1 billion last August. (Glass told The Star then he had no known or immediate health problems.) In September, Yost announced he would retire at the end of the season. That’s when this photo was taken.
Glass’ connection with the Royals officially ended Nov. 21, when Major League Baseball owners approved the sale of the team to the Sherman group.
Relatively speaking, it seems like an eternity between Jan. 9, when Glass died, and today, when the Glass family announced his death.
This looks like the Glass family’s biggest and final victory — sitting on news of the patriarch’s death for eight long days. Why the delay? We’ll probably never know.
JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC 
JF, We no longer have a newspaper in Kansas City! It’s time to get on with a journalistic alternative!!
What else is amazing about the Royals coverage this week was there no local angle in The Star on the Royals reaction to the Astros cheating scandal when it came out. In fact it was barely covered the first two days in the Sports section. I find it hard to believe that the previous Royals beat writers would not have written some story on how it related to the Royals and some player reaction.
Good point, Bill…Everything I’ve read about the scandal — and it’s a doozy — has been from ESPN, NYT, Washington Post and other national organizations.
I hate to be that former Star guy who always talks about the way things used to be but … whenever someone in the newsroom caught wind that a prominent local figure was on death’s door, a reporter was always assigned to write an advanced obit on that person. It would include background information about that person and phone numbers of people to call for quotes once that local figure has died. I hope that The Star did that with Mr. Glass. If not, well …
Amid all the hubbub about the Chiefs, it will be interesting to see what (if anything) the Star publishes this Wednesday on the third anniversary of Yordano Ventura’s death. As best I can tell, this story from a year ago is the last thing of significance they have published. Hopefully, Worthy, Mellinger, or Gregorian will tell us if the dispute over Ventura’s contract has ever been resolved.
https://www.kansascity.com/sports/mlb/kansas-city-royals/article225961990.html
If you want to see something in the paper, you’d better submit it and hope for the best. The Star smells a rare opportunity to sell a lot of over-the-counter papers the next few weeks, and they’ll be working on the Chiefs’ story day and night. This could well be the paper’s last big throw before McClatchy goes into bankruptcy.