Never has the latter-day impotence of The Kansas City Star been more on display than in the case of Rick Roeber, a Lee’s Summit Republican who was elected to the Missouri House of Representatives on Nov. 3 despite horrific charges of physical and/or sexual abuse against three of his four children.
Roeber ran in the 34th District, which includes parts of Lee’s Summit and areas south and east of there. Roeber defeated Democrat Chris Hager by two percentage points and is poised to take the 34th District seat in January.
The shocking element of The Star’s election coverage is that, in its news columns, The Star did not write a single story about the allegations.
In fairness, The Star ran four pre-election editorials, which laid out the story and condemned Roeber. All the editorials were hard hitting. One quoted Roeber’s son Samson as saying: “He beat the shit out of us all the time. Also, (he would) hold us by our necks and hold us against the wall.”
The same editorial reported that Anastasia Roeber, Roeber’s adopted daughter, alleged that Roeber made improper sexual advances toward her in 1990, when she was 9 years old. “He made me place my hand on his genitals,” she said.
Roeber has denied all the allegations.
To me, as a journalist and former KC Star reporter and editor, the most baffling part of this story is that it never made the news pages (as opposed to the editorial page, which is near the back of the paper).
The news-side neglect shows, in my view, how far The Star has fallen.
Back when the paper had a strong news operation — as recently as the mid- to late-2000s — the Roeber story almost certainly would have run on Page 1. Not only that, it would have provoked revulsion among readers, and Roeber’s campaign would have been doomed.
But that was then and this is the new normal…which highlights three basic facts:
:: The Star’s print product has become increasingly anemic as subscriptions have plummeted and deadlines have been pushed up so far that the daily paper has relatively little of “yesterday’s news.”
:: The Star’s civic and political clout has withered as the print product has lost tens of thousands of weekday subscribers and hundreds of thousands of Sunday subscribers over the last five decades.
:: The ebbing of print and the failed shift to digital has robbed the paper of much of its relevance. Where the paper used to keep politicians and civic leaders wary and on their toes, those officials now see the paper as more of a pest than a career maker or breaker.
(Ironically, this post is publishing the day after The Star announced it will be leaving its glass building downtown and moving to smaller quarters next year. The paper won’t even be using the print plant any longer; the paper will be printed in Des Moines.)
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The Roeber case also illuminates another important change that has taken place: Where most editorials used to spring from news reports, the editorial writers now routinely play the role of reporters, covering news stories, while also wearing their opinion hats.
We former Star staff members used to talk reverentially about “the wall” not only between advertising and news but also, to a lesser extent, between news and opinion.
The line between news and opinion has blurred completely. And while that rubs former reporters and editors the wrong way, the change has a saving element: Some stories like Roeber’s are at least getting reported somewhere in the paper.
The Star’s tilt away from strong news and toward strong opinion is a bit unusual. Several years ago, as revenue shriveled, The Star made a conscious decision to beef up its editorial staff and let the news side atrophy. The paper now has five editorial board members, led by Colleen McCain Nelson, vice president and editorial page editor. Nelson is also national opinion editor for the entire McClatchy chain. (She’s a very strong editor, but I don’t see how she can competently oversee the editorial-page operations at 29 dailies. That’s one example of how far McClatchy attempts to stretch its paltry resources.)
Many other metropolitan dailies have gone in a different direction, reducing the news and opinion ranks more evenly. A leading example of that is Gannett chain, which, at some of its papers, has shrunk opinion pages and kept proportionately more reporters. That approach has played out particularly well at my hometown paper, The Courier Journal in Louisville, KY, which has given readers a steady diet of ground-breaking scoops on the long-running Breonna Taylor story. (This is not to say Gannett is “good,” by any means; it’s just stretching its paltry resources differently, maybe more wisely.)
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Although I am glad to see The Star maintain a strong editorial-page operation, it is appalling that the news side would completely ignore a story like that of Rick Roeber. And the result is shocking: Come January, a man who appears to have been a flagrant child abuser will be one of 163 people representing Missourians in the House of Representatives.
JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC 
No mention of if all these sexual abuse charges were levied by a wife seeking child custody and maintenance and the house in a divorce.
Wouldn’t a reporter like you Fitz include that???
Some facts to explain the why?
That’s another story, Tracy, for another reporter — a younger and better reporter — on another day.
The Star should have to remove the period they’ve always put after The Kansas City Star in the masthead.
The Star’s constant cutbacks on reporters and editors, its abandonment of its old brick headquarters, now its impending closure of the relatively new emerald cube and its printing plant, and outsourcing the printing to Des Moines reminds me of the fading Cheshire Cat. Soon all that will be visible is the grin of vulture capitalists.
Nice play on the term “venture capitalists.”