JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC

Four and a half years ago, Kathy Feist, whose background was in special-interest publications, started the Martin City Telegraph out of her dining room, with the goal of covering south Kansas City.

With The Star in contraction mode and having closed all its suburban bureaus, opportunities were ripe for publications to pop up and report on activities and developments in neighborhoods and communities the The Star once covered.

Feist, who earned an undergraduate degree in journalism from the University of Kansas in 1983, jumped on the opportunity and began publishing The Telegraph every other week, covering school-district news (Center, Grandview and Hickman Mills), crime statistics, business openings and more.

Things have gone well for The Telegraph, which is free and distributed mostly in stores and restaurants south of Bannister Road, between Holmes and State Line Road. On the power of paid advertising, Feist moved the paper to rented office space and hired some freelancers. Interestingly, a regular columnist is former City Councilman John Sharp.

Today, however, Feist experienced, perhaps for the first time, the hazards of relying too heavily on Chamber-of-Commerce-type journalism.

In its March 17 print edition, The Telegraph ran a short story about a new chiropractic business in south Kansas City. The freelanced story, now on The Telegraph’s website, would have been innocuous had Feist and another editor not decided to include in it — and even move up to the first paragraph — a highly suspect assertion by the chiropractor.

The story began like this…

Can intravenous vitamin C infusions knock out COVID-19, the infection caused by the coronavirus? Yes, says Jay Goodbinder, a doctor of naturopathic medicine and a chiropractic internist who recently moved his Epigenetics Healing Center from Overland Park to south Kansas City.

Oh, my.

The story did not quote anyone other than Goodbinder. The reporter did not seek an opinion from a medical doctor or expert, and Feist and the other editor did not direct the reporter to do so.

It was, as we say in the news business, a “single-source” story.

And as loony as the whole thing sounds, the story might not have gotten much attention, except for one thing: Today, The Star carried on its front page a story about the Epigenetics Healing Center and Goodbinder’s assertion.

High up in the story — before it “jumped” to an inside page — reporter Kevin Hardy noted that The Telegraph had “recently highlighted Goodbinder’s treatment” and quoted the bit about Vitamin C injections supposedly being able to “knock out” the coronavirus.

Hardy had interviewed Goodbinder and Goodbinder did not back down from his assertion. Hardy quoted him as saying, “There’s a ton of anecdotal evidence out there that shows Vitamin C can be very beneficial in any viral concern.”

Now, we all know what Dr. Fauci has said about “anecdotal evidence,” right?

Laughably, Goodbinder went on to say that medical professionals were “kind of flying by the seat of their pants on this.”

So it’s the medical doctors — not him — flying by the seat of the pants!?

Like any reporter worth his or her salt, Hardy contacted a true medical professional, Mary Ann Jackson, a professor and interim dean of the School of Medicine at UMKC. Jackson told Hardy there was no scientific evidence to support the use of Vitamin C as a preventive or therapeutic tool for COVID-19.

Regarding Goodbinder’s intravenous infustions, she said:

“You’re still sticking a needle in somebody’s vein and infusing a product. You’re not buying a vitamin at the grocery store. In this particular case, if you’re asking me if there’s a risk, there’s significant risk.”

**

When I talked to Kathy Feist on the phone this morning, she was smarting from the bad publicity generated by The Star’s story.

She vacillated between lashing out at The Star for the “tone” of its story and regret at having emphasized the Vitamin C/coronavirus dimension of her own story. Initially, the reference was down low in the story, but because of the spreading virus, Feist and the other editor decided to elevate it.

Feist said the story was intended to simply profile a new Southland business. She decided to do it after the South Kansas City Chamber of Commerce informed the paper that a ribbon-cutting at the Epigenetics Healing Center was scheduled for early April. (The ribbon-cutting was later canceled because of the virus.)

“It really was just kind of a business profile,” Feist said.

Goodbinder has not advertised with The Telegraph, Feist said, although the paper frequently does publish stories about businesses that buy ads.

(Interestingly, Feist said Goodbinder has had paid advertisements in The Star. I have not seen the ads, but I would suspect they are the kind that resemble news stories but carry disclaimers at the top.)

**

You probably know where I’m going with this…Whenever there is no “wall” between a publication’s editorial department and its advertising department, it is difficult to trust that the reporting is objective.

As editor and publisher of The Telegraph, Feist made two big mistakes with the Epigenetics story: First, she should have cut out any reference to Vitamin C and COVID-19, and, second, she certainly should not have made it the focal point of the story.

Now, because of those mistakes, not only does Goodbinder look like a quack, the Martin City Telegraph look amateurish.

…As we were nearing the end of our conversation this morning, Feist said she had recently hired a full-time reporter. I was glad to hear she had been successful enough to make that investment, but I Ieft her with a suggestion: “Make sure he gets both sides of every story.”