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

There have been a few interesting developments in the world of journalism the last few days, and I know many of you will be interested.

Let’s start with the local and move to national.

Shawnee Mission Post

The Post, which started up in 2010 and focuses on northern Johnson County, reported today that it now has more than 4,000 paid subscribers. That’s quite impressive, especially considering that the (once?) mighty Kansas City Star has only about 12,500 stand-alone digital subscribers.

Jay Senter, publisher of SMP, said in today’s story that the online paper signed up 1,300 new subscribers last year. As a result of the growth, the paper has been able to go from three employees — Senter, wife Julia Westhoff and reporter Leah Wankum — to six. The newest staff members are Juliana Garcia, a reporter who was hired at the start of last year; Holly Cook, who joined as deputy editor in March; and Kyle Palmer, whom Jay and Julia hired away from KCUR last summer to become SMP editor.

Subscriptions cost $6 a month or $65 a year. (You can get a one-month test for $1.)

In the story, Senter said SMP’s year-over-year readership was up 70 to 80 percent in three key areas — users (72 percent), user sessions (81 percent) and page views (77 percent).

Julia Westhoff and Jay Senter

Senter and Westhoff met while they attended the University of Wisconsin and worked at the school newspaper. After graduating, they settled in Prairie Village, where they were frustrated by the lack of news coverage in their community. So, they started the Prairie Village Post, which evolved into The Shawnee Mission Post. They lived in Prairie Village before moving to Minnesota late last year with their three daughters. (Palmer said they continue to own the paper and be involved with it.)

SMP’s success is a tribute to Jay’s and Julia’s skills and perseverance. By giving northern Johnson County residents a reliable source of news in their community, they have made Johnson County better for everyone.

(Note: When this was first published, I said Jay Senter and Julia Westhoff live in Prairie Village. I have corrected that.)

The Washington Post

Marty Baron, 66-year-old acclaimed executive editor of The Post, announced Tuesday that he would be retiring at the end of February. During Baron’s eight years at The Post, the paper won 10 Pulitzer Prizes, including the 2020 award in the explanatory reporting category for a series on the effects of climate change.

Marty Baron

Before going to The Post, he was editor at The Boston Globe, which won six Pulitzers during his run. With the public, he is best known for overseeing The Globe’s “Spotlight” team of investigative reporters, who reported on a pattern of sexual abuse by clergy in the Catholic Church and the church’s effort to cover it up.

A series of more than 20 stories won the paper the 2003 Pulitzer in the public service category. The investigation was the subject of the 2015 film “Spotlight,” a riveting drama about how The Globe got onto the story and wouldn’t let go of it. (In one memorable scene, a reporter sneaks into a lawyer’s office while the receptionist is distracted, and the reporter convinces the reluctant lawyer to start talking.)

In an interview with The New York Times, Baron said the biggest challenge facing the news media was the “level of conspiracy thinking that has become entrenched with a substantial portion of the American public.”

“(T)raditionally,” he said, “we have always operated from a common set of facts — and now people can’t even agree on what happened yesterday.”

“New” McClatchy

I wrote yesterday about VOA (Voice of America) and mentioned that a good friend, Ernie Torriero, is an editor there. Today, Ernie passed on a story out of Idaho that reflects very poorly on the New McClatchy, which last year went into bankruptcy and was purchased by a New Jersey hedge fund, Chatham Asset Management.

A publication called Idaho Press reported that the editor of the state’s biggest newspaper, The Idaho Statesman, was fired after publicly criticizing parent company New McClatchy for allegedly refusing to pay for a Microsoft Excel account for the paper’s newest investigative reporter.

Christina Lords

The editor, 34-year-old Christina Lords, tweeted her allegation last Friday and was fired on Monday for violating New McClatchy’s social media policy.

A McClatchy spokesperson told The Washington Post “the full facts of the situation are not accurately represented on social media.”

If what Lords said is correct, it would represent a new low for McClatchy, either new or old. An Excel spreadsheet would be a basic tool for an investigative reporter. And what would the cost be — $100 a year or so?

I hope that’s not the full story, but, tellingly, the McClatchy spokesperson didn’t deny it.

Hedge funds and newspapers…a nasty stew, but it’s going to be with us for the foreseeable future.