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

As you’ve probably noticed, I no longer write much about The Kansas City Star.

The main reason is there isn’t a lot to say. The paper’s website is mostly a wasteland — mainly sports and restaurant comings and goings — and the investigative work it undertakes often doesn’t relate to the Kansas City area.

(For example, the paper has been on a tear the last year or so regarding abusive operators of outstate boarding schools. While that’s important and certainly newsworthy, it has limited appeal to core readers; I never hear anyone talking about those stories.)

Today, though, while reading the “e” edition — the electronic version of the printed paper — I noticed that The Star recently suffered a major loss: The name of Colleen McCain Nelson, who since 2016 had been The Star’s vice president and editorial page paper, was missing from the masthead.

A Google search turned up that she resigned last month to become executive editor of The Sacramento Bee and to oversee McClatchy’s five other California papers, as well.

I am pretty sure The Star did not play the story of Nelson’s departure prominently. I’m an online subscriber, and I check the website several times a day and did not see the story there — although it’s possible I missed it.

Checking the search bar on the website, I found that reporter Kevin Hardy had a Jan. 7 story about her resignation. The story quoted Star president and editor Mike Fannin as saying…

We’re thrilled about Colleen’s well-earned promotion but sad to lose the best editorial page editor in the country. She has built a world-class team in Kansas City, reinvigorated our opinion journalism and set a very high bar for her successor.

Nelson

Let me put this more explicitly: During her four years at The Star, Nelson was the most pivotal and important employee at the paper. The Star could carry on more easily without Fannin than without Nelson. At a time when many newspapers were thinning out their opinion pages, Nelson was rebuilding and fortifying The Star’s opinion pages.

I have been particularly impressed during the last year, when Nelson turned The Star toward endorsing local control of the police department and called for Chief Rick Smith to resign or be fired. She saw clearly how poor the police department relations are with the African American community and how ludicrous it is for the biggest police department in a Democratic county to be run by do-nothing political appointees of a Republican governor in a Republican state.

So what happens with the opinion pages now?

It’s a good question, and Fannin didn’t address it in the Jan. 7 story. He said nothing about choosing a successor for Nelson, which leads me to believe that her successor will be promoted from within. I seriously doubt that the hedge fund that owns McClatchy — Chatham Asset Management out of New Jersey — will give the green light to hiring an experienced, highly paid editorial page editor. Chatham will be looking to reduce payroll and to direct the savings into return on investment.

If a successor is chosen from within, the options are somewhat limited.

With Nelson gone, the editorial board now consists of Fannin, who writes no editorials; Derek Donovan, who mostly handles letters to the editor; Toriano Porter, who writes almost exclusively about racial issues; Michael Ryan, the token conservative board member; Dave Helling, a versatile journalist with a strong reporting background; and Melinda Henneberger, a two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist who is married to a Star mid-level editor named Bill Turque.

Clearly, Helling and Henneberger would be the top two internal candidates. However, both are nearing retirement age. Helling is about 65, and Henneberger is about 63. Would either want to take on that much responsibility at this stage of their careers? On the other hand, one of them could take the job with the intent of maintaining, in the short term, the well-oiled operation Nelson put together.

However this goes, though, I think The Star’s editorial-page operation has seen its best days and that we will see a gradual decline from here…And I say that hoping the decline is gradual rather than precipitous.

For Nelson, on the other hand, the view is up. She’s only 46 and should have many great years ahead of her. It would not surprise me if she wound up working for the opinion section of either The Washington Post or The New York Times.

The Star and Kansas City were lucky to have her the last four years. I met her only once and never got to know her, but I will miss her strong and inspired leadership at The Star.