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

It warms my heart when newspaper publishers communicate directly with their readers.  

And so, when I was in Louisville for Derby Week, I eagerly read a long piece that Arnold Garson, publisher of The Courier-Journal, wrote about the state of daily newspapers. The sub-head of the article, which appeared on the front of the May 2 Forum (opinion) section, was “Newspapers are better off than you may think.”

In an unfortunate and ironic turn of events, the piece was published the day that the Courier was able to print just 40,000 of its “live-run” copies, instead of the scheduled 270,000. All of the pre-printed sections, including the Forum, were published, but the news and sports sections were not delivered until the following day. The disruption made the headline about newspapers being “better off” ring a bit hollow. The afternoon of the debacle, Garson found himself in front of cameras and reporters explaining what had gone wrong, not what was going right.

Garson

But that is behind him and The Courier now, and it certainly didn’t puncture the bigger picture that he painted in his article. His points, while specific in many instances to The Courier-Journal, apply to almost all major metropolitan dailies, including The Kansas City Star. 

Here are some highlights from the article.

On his paper’s circulation decline:

“The Courier-Journal’s paid circulation decline last year was 8.4 percent daily and 3.8 percent Sunday….We are focusing hard this year on turning the paid-circulation trend line, and we are seeing some progress.” 

On the newspaper industry as a whole:

“The newspaper industry is alive and well. Yes, we are changing, and the economic pressures are greater than they used to be. But The Courier-Journal has remained a profitable business throughout this recession. It is a fully viable business now and for the future. In fact, we are much stronger economically today than we were a year ago. Ditto for our parent company, Gannett.”

On some of the business-oriented changes the paper has made:

“It no longer makes sense to deliver newspapers to outlying areas, hundreds of miles from home base, where they are of little value to our advertisers and expensive to distribute. It no longer makes good business sense to use heavily discounted home delivery subscription prices as a tool to drive paid circulation volume. It no longer is realistic to avoid implementing regular price increases for home delivery to partly offset increasing costs.”

On the decline of TV evening news broadcasts:

“Television evening news, long the cash cow of that industry, has experienced a decline in viewers that is deeper and longer-term than the newspaper circulation decline. Of course, the major networks have more news competition than they ever have had. And they, like newspapers, face competition from the Internet. But the public discussion seems all about the future of newspapers, not television.”

On the type of readers that newspapers attract (according to research studies): 

“79 percent of adults employed in white-collar jobs read a newspaper.
“82 percent of adults with household incomes of $100,000 a year or more read a newspaper.
“84 percent of college graduates read a newspaper.”

On his paper’s web site:

“Courier-Journal.com is a hugely successful local website with more than 16 million page views and 1.3 million unique users monthly. It is growing, and it is profitable.”

On the likelihood of start-up local websites and blogs replacing newspapers:

“Who would perform the expensive oversight function that guards our democracy against tyranny without newspapers to fill that role? Footnote: The Courier-Journal employs 160 professional journalists, more than all the local TV stations combined.

“Who would challenge the many public officials whose lives generally are more comfortable if they can keep the activities of government secret? Footnote: The Courier-Journal spends $150,000 to $200,000 a year in legal fees to keep this community’s information pipelines open.”

On how the paper has approached financial cutbacks:

“We have been through two rounds of layoffs over the past year and a half. I don’t like that, but most businesses locally and beyond have had to reduce employment during this recession. I do want to point out that we have tried to navigate both of these reductions in ways that minimize the impact on local, hard-news content. We have, for example, spent much more time trying to find ways to reduce staffing in support areas than in core areas, such as news gathering. We have focused our content cutbacks more in features sections as opposed to hard-news sections.”

On the newspapers that have run aground:

“The few newspapers that have failed during this recession have been mostly those that were artificially propped up by joint operating agreements (with competing newspapers), an arrangement devised by the federal government to sustain failing newspapers. The handful of newspaper companies that have gone to bankruptcy reorganization have been those that were heavily burdened with debt. Both of these things were predictable.”

On the future of his paper:

“As I have said before, The Courier-Journal will be here for a long time. It will publish my obituary and yours — but definitely not its own.”

First, I extend best wishes to reporter and columnist Debra Skodack, assistant business editor Donna Vestal and librarian Janelle Hopkins, who reportedly got laid off in the latest round of cuts at The Star. (A few other editorial staff members whom I do not know also got the ax.) Skodack, Vestal and Hopkins have contributed significantly to The Star’s editorial success over many years. 

It’s too bad, and it shows again, in hindsight, what an unwise move the McClatchy Co. made four years ago when it purchased The Star and several other papers owned by Knight Ridder. The weakness of the McClatchy chain is dragging down The Star, which has always been profitable, primarily because it has been able to charge very high advertising rates.

Star officials had hoped that with the round of layoffs earlier this year, the bleeding had stopped. Turns out the tourniquet came loose again.

Meanwhile, the editorial staff members push ahead, putting out a lot of good work and a little shaky work.   

Plums

~ “Saving young lives one law at a time” (A-1, Sunday, May 2) — Interesting story about Janette Fennell of Leawood, whose experience at the hands of a robber and subsequent perseverance in helping others has led to the development of many vehicle-safety improvements, including glow-in-the-dark trunk releases. Story by Grace Hobson.

~ ” ‘Russian roulette’ after data breaches” (A-1, Sunday, May 2) — Reporter Scott Canon continued his seemless transition from the National Desk to the Business Desk with a public-service piece about people’s exposure to computer credit-card theft. Canon’s move is paying dividends for the readers, as well as the beaten-down business desk.

~ “Renewal hasn’t come easy” (A-1, Monday, May 3) — Managing Editor Steve Shirk once told me he didn’t like anniversary stories, but it looks like Star readers are going to get one every year around this time about Greensburg, Kan., and its battle back from destruction by a tornado in 2007. Aaron Barnhart elevated this story by focusing on the friction that has come with rebuilding. Outstanding photos by Jill Toyoshiba.

~ “Fed up, and fighting for disabilities help” (A-1, Monday, May 3) — Kansas City, Mo., City Hall reporter Lynn Horsley took the time to delve deeply into a story that sometimes gets overlooked — governmental compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act. In this case, the city clearly is dropping the ball, and that’s not going to help Mayor Mark Funkhouser’s  dim re-election prospects. 

~ “Life changes for Gordon & Aviles” (C-1, tuesday, May 4) — Sam Mellinger continued to make strides as the successor to the inimitable Joe Posnanski with a trenchant column about the changing identity of the Royals, now that one-time hotshot prospect Alex Gordon has been shipped to the minors.

~ “Suspect captured in 53-hour drama” (A-1, Wednesday, May 5) — The Star got it right by making the arrest of terrorist Faisal Shahzad the centerpiece.

~ “KC police make arrest in Waldo rape inquiry” (A-1, Thursday, May 6) — Relative to the extensive coverage of the uproar over the rapes in Waldo, this four-column-wide spread by reporter Christine Vendel and photographers Keith Myers and Jill Toyoshiba was proportionate.

~ “Rape suspect charged” and “A past defined by rape, prison” (A-1, Friday, May 7) — Tandem stories about suspected Waldo rapist Bernard Jackson. One of the many things I liked about this package was that his mug shot and the sketch that police put together weeks ago were both on the front page, and the similarity between the sketch and the photo was unmistakable….Side note: Did it strike anyone else as odd that the first series of Waldo rapes, in 1983 and 1984, apparently did not generate an uproar like the most recent series? 

~ “Bizarre day stuns Wall Street” (A-1, Friday, May 7) — This story undoubtedly would have been higher on the page were it not for Bernard Jackson. For Kansas City readers, his story was rightly bigger than a 998-point, intra-day drop in the Dow.

~ “Putting the brush to Bartle” (A-11, Friday, May 7) — This is one of those stories that made me want to thank the reporter — in this case Kevin Collison — personally. Like many other area residents, I’m sure, I have driven by Bartle Hall in recent months and wondered what the heck was happening to the exterior of the older section of the convention center. It looked like the paint was peeling and disintegrating, but how could I be sure? Collison confirmed and explained the situation in his story about the center getting a $152,000 paint job. Among the interesting details that Collison included: It takes about four days to paint each triangle. 

Prunes

#% Kentucky Derby coverage (Sunday, May 2) — A full story about the Kentucky Derby (136 years and counting) should run on the sports front of every major U.S. paper. Without fail, no excuses. The Star gave it a small photo at the top of the sports front and referred readers to story on Page 6.

#% “A load of economic optimism” (D-1, Tuesday, May 4) — Randolph Heaster’s schizophrenic Star Business Weekly centerpiece threw readers for a loop. It started out like it a story about housing starts but segued into a story about the rising sale of pickup trucks. In fairness, the overline — the words above the headline — cued readers with the words “pickup sales,” but it was still weird.

The next installment of Plums & Prunes will be coming at you soon, but today I’m establishing a new category in the fruit family. The pumpkin. And not just any pumpkin — a shriveled pumpkin that got left on the porch after Halloween and was still decaying at Thanksgiving. (In case you’re wondering, the pumpkin is, technically, a fruit.)

And the pumpkin goes to…..Jason Whitlock! Come on down, Jason, and collect your fruit! Actually, he must share it with K.C. Star publisher Mark Zieman and editor Mike Fannin who were crazy enough to give Whitlock, a sports columnist, a weekly op-ed column titled “Independent Thoughts.” It probably was presented to editorial page editor Miriam Pepper as a done deal.

The column began last week, while I was out of town, and I just learned about it this week. The most disappointing part of this is that it occurs at a time when top Star editors seemed to be exhibiting good judgment on news placement by giving prominent play to a wider variety of stories at the local, national and international levels.

Fortunately, Whitlock’s column (see this week’s right here) won’t affect that facet of the news operation. Nevertheless, it shows very poor judgment by top Star officials, in my opinion. It’s a bad call for at least two reasons: Whitlock is out of his element, and he doesn’t have the tact and tone that it takes to be successful as an op-ed columnist.

Whitlock has no qualifications whatsoever to be anything besides a sports writer or sports columnist. That’s his whole background; it’s what he knows. Oh, and did you catch his admission in his first “Thoughts” column — an admission he has made before — that, “I avoid our political system. I’ve never voted. I don’t have a political affiliation or ideology.”

To me, that disqualifies him. You’re outta here! Hit the showers. How can your views carry any weight when you shun the democratic process? How do you avoid politics, not vote and yet get to express your opinions in a major metropolitan daily about current events and political controversies, such as the new Arizona immigration law? Makes no sense at all. I guess he still could find religion and start voting, but I doubt that will happen because he takes such pride in being a contrarian. 

Regarding tact and tone, Whitlock always has the sledgehammer out; that’s all he knows. It works fine for the Chiefs, who need to be hammered regularly, but I don’t see how he will be able to wear well as an op-ed columnist. The best, most enduring op-ed columnists are those who, generally, are measured, reflective, insightful and often witty. I’m talking about people like David Brooks, Gail Collins and Paul Krugman of The New York Times, Eugene Robinson of The Washington Post and Leonard Pitts of the Miami Herald.

I give this experiment a year, tops. And it just might be the beginning of the end for Whitlock at The Star. To me, it has all the earmarks of a “Hail Mary” pass.

My wife Patty and I had a great time in Louisville, my hometown, last week. Derby week always yields thrills, disappointments and interesting experiences. 

Here are three that stood out for me. 

* On Thursday, I went to the track with Joe Drape, a Kansas City native who is the turf writer for The New York Times. Joe and I had exchanged some e-mails and a few phone calls the last couple of years, but, to the best of my recollection, we had not met before Thursday. 

After meeting at 7:45 a.m. at his hotel not far from Churchill Downs, we drove to the track in his rented SUV. The barn area, open to the public most days, was crowded with people who had come to watch the Derby horses gallop. Outside the barn of trainer Bob Baffert, a three-time Kentucky Derby winner, Joe first interviewed Garrett (sp?) Gomez, who would ride Derby favorite Lookin at Lucky, trained by Baffert. Gomez spoke quietly, in a near monotone, and maintained a blank expression, which seemed to soften in the rays of the early-morning sun.  

Bob Baffert (left) and Joe Drape

Then Baffert appeared, wearing pressed jeans and wearing his trademark sunglasses. After posing for a photo with some fans, Baffert began talking with Joe, who had concluded his interview with Gomez. Joe introduced me to Baffert, and the three of us talked for a couple of minutes. We talked about Lookin at Lucky’s unlucky post position, No. 1, on the extreme inside, where he was likely to get squeezed as the outside horses pushed toward the rail. We talked about the weather forecast — heavy rain — and how Lookin at Lucky might handle a sloppy track.  

As the conversation began to lag, I decided on the spur of the moment to ask Baffert a question about the horse that I liked — Noble’s Promise. Like Lookin at Lucky, Noble’s Promise prefers to run toward the front of the pack, and he would break from the No. 3 hole, just one spot removed from Lookin at Lucky. 

And so I spoke up: “Where do you think Noble’s Promise will be?” 

Baffert looked at me squarely in the eye and without missing a beat, replied, “I don’t have the slightest idea, and I don’t care.” And with that, he turned and walked away. I turned to Joe, smiled and said, “Sorry I killed your interview.”   

* On Derby morning, I went to the track by myself. The Derby is always sold out long before Derby Day, and I always try to buy tickets on track grounds for less than face value. My track record is good: I’m cheap, but I’m a pretty good negotiator, and I work various angles. 

In the Derby ticket game, I’ve found, marketing is very important. The people who stand around holding up their fingers, seeking, one, two or three tickets, usually don’t do that well. People who have extra tickets to sell tend to give prospective buyers a good looking over (in many cases, the buyer will be in a six-person box with the seller) and simply ignore a lot of would-be buyers. 

I always try to dress relatively well (although it was sprinkling Saturday, and I wore a green rain jacket over my shirt), and I always have a home-made sign. On Saturday, my sign read, “Need 1 or 2, for me (Jim) and my wife (Patty).” I thought the personal touch might be a plus, and it also achieved another purpose: It told sellers that I did not intend to buy the tickets and then resell them at a higher price. 

I staked out a position about 150 yards from the clubhouse entrance, away from an area closer to the entrance, where a few other buyers were lurking. To my left, people were streaming by on foot. To my right, cars full of people edged toward the valet parking area. Both lines of traffic — foot and vehicular — had a good view of me and my sign. I stood there smiling, not saying much. As the people came by, almost all of them looked at me and read my sign. A couple of people said something like, “Hey, what if you only get one ticket — who goes in, you or Patty?”  

After half an hour or so, a head popped up from the sun roof of a black SUV, and the person whistled and gestured at me. I slowly walked to the vehicle, and the woman seated in the front passenger seat displayed two first-floor clubhouse tickets — on the rail about 100 yards past the finish line. The face value was $162 each. “I’ll take $200 for them,” she said. “Will you take $200 for both of them?” I asked. “Yes,” she said. “That’s what I meant. I wouldn’t try to sell them for more than they’re worth.” Just like that, we had a deal. The family had two boxes, each with six seats, and they happened to have two more tickets than they had people.    

As I was walking away, the woman’s husband said, “Now, you’re not going to sell those, are you?” I assured him that I was going back to where I was staying to change clothes, pick up my wife and return to the track. I would be sitting with members of his family, and friends of theirs, for the 136th running of the Kentucky Derby. 

* Late Saturday afternoon, as the field of 20 Derby horses hit the top of the home stretch, I thought I had the Kentucky Derby winner. I let out a shriek as my horse, Noble’s Promise took the lead from two front-running horses who were slowing down. For several strides, Noble’s Promise, who had gone off at odds of 24-1, led the race. But just as quickly as he had taken the lead, he, too, slowed and relinquished the lead. Joe Drape had told me that Noble’s Promise, bred more for speed than distance, would not be able to survive the stretch run. He was right. 

Super Saver wins the Derby

Super Saver, the eventual winner, passed my horse. So did Ice Box, who finished second; Paddy O’Prado, who finished third; and Make Music for Me, who finished fourth. But not Lookin at Lucky. Oh, no, he finished sixth, one spot behind my horse. But, at that point, as the horses flashed by the finish line, I didn’t have the slightest idea where Lookin at Lucky was. And I didn’t care.

As some of you know, I was in Louisville, my hometown, all last week for the Kentucky Derby and related activities.

Despite a lot of rain on Saturday, Derby Day, it was a great time, and the city was throbbing with action and anticipation. On Sunday, the day after Derby, there’s always a bit of a letdown, a communal hangover, as people float back down to earth and try to return to their normal routines.

One thing almost all Louisvillians, as well as out-of-town visitors do on Sunday is read The Courier-Journal’s special Derby section, where people can read about all facets of Derby Day, from the race itself to the fashion on display and the celebrities who attended. The special section — usually 20 pages or more — takes weeks to plan and involves thousands of hours of work by editors, reporters, photographers, artists, designers, copy editors and others. It is always well done and as much a part of the Derby aftermath as rumpled suits and dresses and soiled Derby hats.

But this year there was a problem, a really big problem. For most of the Courier’s 240,000 Sunday subscribers, the paper — the news and Derby sections, anyway — did not come out on Sunday morning. Just after the presses began to run Saturday night, an unusual and fatal press failure occurred. Sunday morning, tens of thousands of people woke up and found only the pre-printed sections — opinion, the arts, features, etc. — in their boxes or on their doorsteps.

The “live sections” — the main news section, the Metro section, the regular sports section and, of course, the Derby section — were missing. Understandably, the calls began pouring in to the paper. I was staying at my uncle’s house, and he began calling before 8 a.m., getting a recording that said, “All circuits are busy.” 

Thousands of people, undoubtedly, went to their local convenience and grocery stores in search of papers, but what many of them found was what my wife Patty and I found — hand-printed signs on the doors saying, “No papers.” About the only place where some full papers were available were hotels relatively close to downtown and Churchill Downs. 

Later in the day, Courier-Journal President and Publisher Arnold Garson said at a news conference that the paper received “tens of thousands of calls.” The press failure, which Garson said involved “complex electronic circuitry,” did not affect the paper’s online presentation. The Derby stories and photos, and all the other “live” stories, were there. But it wasn’t the same.

“This is the worst possible time” for a press failure to occur, he noted. The paper had planned a run of 270,000 papers, Garson said, which would have allowed for single-copy sales of about 30,000. To learn more about the press failure and to  highlights of Garson’s press conference, click here. 

Almost all newspapers, including The Star, experience routine problems that interrupt the press run, but a catastrophic problem like the one The Courier-Journal experienced is extremely rare. And, unfortunately, it happened on the paper’s best-read, most-anticipated edition of the year.     

On Sunday afternoon and evening, the live Sunday sections were being printed in Indianapolis, as were copies of today’s paper. This morning, subscribers got Sunday’s live sections along with today’s paper. 

As a result of the press failure, The Courier-Journal suffered significant monetary losses. The greater potential threat, however, is a loss of confidence among subscribers. Even though newspapers have suffered significant circulation declines in the last decade or so, the bond between many communities and their daily newspaper is very strong, and it’s not due primarily to the online product — not yet, anyway. It’s because of the newspaper that people pick up in their yards, hold in their hands and read with their eyes. It’s one thing they count on every day. They might complain about the product, but they’ve come to expect it to at least arrive.   

Hopefully, most Courier-Journal subscribers will understand that the weekend debacle was an aberration. The incident should not significantly dent subscribers’ confidence in the company, but that doesn’t mean it won’t. These are tenuous times in the newspaper business, and readers have many more options. The Courier-Journal would be wise to reach out in some way to its subscribers to try to make amends for Derby Debacle 2010.

I have a quick anecdote to relate. Recently, I judged high school debates at Shawnee Mission North High School. The “bullpen,” where we waited for assignments, was the school library. 

In the morning, at one point, about 70 or more people were sitting at tables in the library, killing time while waiting. I knew that there would be some dead time, so I had brought The Star and The New York Times. It struck me early on that very few people were reading newspapers, even though stacks of the Thursday and Friday Wall Street Journal sat atop the library check-out desk (still wrapped in plastic until I ripped the stacks open).  

I decided to do some reconnaissance. I walked around the room and checked out what the judges-in-waiting were doing. Many (probably teachers) were doing paperwork; some were reading paperback and hardback books; some were playing with their cell phones; a few were listening to iPods; and some passed the time chatting. Only four people, including me, were either reading newspapers or had one nearby. 

This was my reaction: If you flashed back 30 years — same setting, same number of people — more than half probably would be reading a newspaper. 

Left me with an empty sort of feeling.

But, as keen observers all over the U.S. now like to say, it is what it is. I can’t change it, and neither can KC Star Editor Mike Fannin nor my many current and former journalistic friends and colleagues. All we can do is enjoy print journalism here in Kansas City for as long as it lasts and hope that’s many years to come.   

This week’s edition is truncated, due to the fact that I’m in Louisville, Ky., my hometown, for Derby Week activities. In fact, in putting the hurry-up on this week’s edition, I didn’t come across any obvious prunes. So, rejoice, Star staffers, my magnifying glass caught no blemishes.

Plums

~ “Little rest for West” (A-1, Friday, April 23) — Timely and in-depth profile of Kansas City’s foremost up-and-coming politician, Airick Leonard West, who recently was elected president of the Kansas City school board. This guy might be running for mayor in four or eight years. Story by Joe Robertson. Photos by Jill Toyoshiba.

~ “Connection revealed in KU ticket controversy) — (A-1, Friday, April 23) — Investigative reporters Mike McGraw and Mark Morris made sense out of the puzzling state of affairs surrounding the ticket-sale situation in Lawrence. McGraw and Morris relied on anonymous sources, but they cited sound reasons for granting anonymity: “speaking publicly about the matter could affect (the sources”) long-standing friendships and business relationships, or could disrupt the criminal investigation.” 

~ “Surprise! Downtown is back at the trough” (A-4, Friday, April 23) — Mike Hendricks made a case for not building a new downtown hotel: It would sap vital funds that otherwise could be used to improve neighborhoods in disrepair. He makes a good point, but this sure is a tough call because, to remain competitive as a convention and tourist destination (think Big 12 basketball tournament, among other things), Kansas City badly needs more close-in hotel rooms. With the Power & Light District, we crawled within striking distance of Denver and Indianapolis, and now the challenge is to remain competitive.

~ “It’s RIP for MAST in KC area” (A-1, Saturday, April 24) — Sara Shepherd brought the readers up to speed on the K.C. Fire Department’s takeover of Metropolitan Ambulance Services Trust, which had operated the ambulance service the last 30 years. Good photo by Mike Ransdell of “KCFD” letters being applied to the side of an ambulance.

~ “Campaign maneuver lets donors stay secret” (A-1, Saturday, April 24) — Reporter Dave Helling did his best to unravel the spaghetti junction of nonprofit organizations that are legally circumventing campaign disclosure laws in a bid to change the law to have Missouri judges elected rather than appointed by the governor. In this case, both the bad guys (those pushing for election of  judges) and the good guys (who want to keep Missouri’s nonpartisan court plan) are taking advantage of the legal loopholes.

~ “Arizona enacts stricter measure” (A-1, Saturday, April 24) — Good call by the editors to lead the page with the story about Arizona enacting a controversial law that comes down hard on illegal immigrants. Arizona’s action could accelerate Congress’s consideration of immigration reform.

~ “Stagnant government stalls quest to save pond” (A-1, Sunday, April 25) — Environmental (and investigative) reporter Karen Dillon recounted the maddening story of Sharon Berten of Gallatin, Mo., whose farm pond has been polluted by a nearby livestock sale barn. (For “the story behind the story,” see post from Tuesday, April 27.)    

~ “He put KC’s art museum on the map” — (A-1, Sunday, April 25) — Fitting and well-written retrospective on Marc Wilson’s 28-year tenure as director of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art…One caveat: Writer Alice Thorson should have told the readers how old Wilson is. In a “bio box” accompanying the story, she said he was born in 1941, which would make him either 68 or 69. But, as an editor told me long ago, “never make the reader do the math.”

P.S. In the story, Wilson gave a very fitting tip of the hat to the late Donald D. “Casey” Jones, a long-time Star editor and member. Wilson said the museum’s American Indian gallery would not be what it is without a generous bequest of art works and money from Jones, who died several years ago. Like the Nelson, I’m indebted to Casey: He hired me 1969,when I was a 23-year-old cub reporter.

One of the joys of a casual, thorough reading of the daily paper (the kind of reading you don’t do online) is the occasional story that makes me stop and admire the effort and creativity that went into the piece.

Such was the case with a Sunday, April 25, story that was ensconced on Page 4 of the Local section.

The headline was “Tina Porter testifies for child protection bill.” The writer was Jason Noble, who has been The Star’s Jefferson City correspondent the last few years.

This could easily have been a routine, ho-hum story, but Noble wasn’t about to let opportunity slip through his grasp.

Come. Take a closer look, through my eyes, as I read it and re-read it.

Here’s the lead, or first sentence of the story:

Tina Porter’s voice is too soft for this place where volume so often trumps substance, but when she begins her story, everyone falls silent.

In just one sentence, Noble has set a tone that says: Are you ready for something you don’t see at the State Capitol every day? He establishes a contrast between Tina Porter’s soft voice and the customary hubbub of the Capitol. And I know that a story is coming. Noble just told me so. How can I resist reading on? 

She is in a hearing room in the Missouri House, telling once more the story of how her children were taken from her.

“Hi,” she begins her testimony before the Crime Prevention Committee. “I want to respectfully acknowledge all of you.” But before she gets much further, the chairman reminds her to speak up, to speak into the microphone.

Noble lets me know the story is going to be gripping because, for God’s sake, it’s about Porter’s children being taken from her. At the same time, he requests my forbearance; she’s telling her story “once more.” And almost imperceptibly, without disturbing the flow of the story, Noble frames the backdrop for this day’s action: Porter is speaking to the House Crime Prevention Committee; she’s testifying. Also, notice that Noble doesn’t bother naming the committee chairman. It’s not important; it would just get in the way. The spotlight must be on Tina Porter.

Kansas Citians know her story well — how in 2004, Sam, 7, and Lindsey, 8, disappeared during a weekend with their father, Dan Porter, how he refused for more than three years to tell what happened to them, how he finally led authorities to their bodies, and how he ultimately was tried and sentenced for their murders.

In four precise phrases, Noble summarizes the story that most Kansas City area residents, including me, are very familiar with. And even I’ve heard it many times before, I appreciate the recapitulation. It’s been a while since I’ve thought about it. And for those who aren’t familiar with the story, Noble just gave them the gist of it, too, setting the stage for whatever new direction the story is taking with Porter’s testimony.

But these state representatives from eastern and southern Missouri don’t know her story. They need to now because Tina Porter has a request for them:

Subtly, through the unknowing eyes and ears of those state reps from eastern and southern Missouri, Noble has ushered me to the front door of this day’s story. Tina Porter has a request…I’m on the edge of my chair. What is it that this woman who has been through absolute hell wants? Just like those state reps who are hearing Porter’s story for the first time, I want to know. 

Don’t let it happen again.

She might as well have been swinging a sledgehammer. Don’t let it happen again. God forbid. Now I want to know specifically what does she want the legislature to do to prevent a similar horror from happening to others.

And with that, Noble has locked me up for the remaining 15 paragraphs of the story. He’s got handcuffs on my attention that are so strong and so tight that George Foreman couldn’t break them and Houdini couldn’t slip out of them.

Now…if you, too, are interested in knowing what Tina Porter wants the legislature to do, you can find out right here.

For the most part, readers can’t tell what reporters go through in the course of gathering information for stories. A lot of times, there’s very little difficulty — just make a few phone calls, do some checking of previous stories and, bam, it falls into place.

Not so on others, however. And such a one was a long, investigative-type story by environmental reporter Karen Dillon that ran on the front page of The Star last Sunday, April 25.

The story, titled “Stagnant government stalls quest to save pond,” recounted the sorry experience of 69-year-old Sharon Berten of Gallatin, Mo., whose farm pond has been polluted by a nearby livestock sale barn. Everything was fine on Berten’s property until 2006, when a fellow named Danny Froman began operating a cattle sale barn across the highway from Berten.

Then, storm water began carrying chunks of manure into her pond, and the pond slowly went to pot. Adding insult to injury, one federal and two state agencies have dragged their feet, and a frustrated Berten says that local, state and federal governments have “thumbed their noses at me.”

The story stands on three legs: Berten, the government agencies and Danny Froman, the sale barn operator. Dillon carefully and fully documented Berten’s and the government agencies’ sides of the story. As I read through the story, I badly wanted to hear what Froman had to say. Early on, Dillon said, “Froman could not be reached for an interview over a period of several weeks.” That’s always frustrating to the reader — and usually the reporter, too.

Toward the end of the story, Dillon quoted some friends and employees of Froman as saying Froman wasn’t getting a fair shake. “Danny’s got a big, big heart,” Dillon quoted one employee as saying. “He did have a little manure get away from the barn. You know manure does that.”

From a pure reading of the story, without any input from Dillon, I wondered how hard Dillon had tried to get ahold of Froman. It seemed as if she might have just made a few phone calls before resorting to the “could not be reached” line, which is the standard whenever reporters can’t get through to someone on the phone. 

So, I sent an e-mail to Dillon asking if she had gone beyond phone calls. She responded promptly, and here’s what she wrote…

“I called Froman numerous times, but he didn’t return calls. So I and a photographer went to the sale barn a couple Mondays ago during the auction. Froman came out into the arena, and I tried to get him to answer some questions. He asked me politely to call later. While I was trying to talk to him, I was standing in a narrow aisle next to the arena with the photographer.

“A couple of his buddies pushed the photographer down the aisle to the door in what I now call a ‘belly sweep.’ I managed to avoid it by jumping into a corner. When it became clear Froman wasn’t going to talk, I looked around and by then the guys had my photographer outside the door of the barn. They agreed to talk, and that’s where the quotes about the big, big heart came from. It was a bit intimidating at the time, but I’ve been through worse.”

So, the most dramatic part of Dillon’s effort to get the whole story didn’t get in the paper. I wish it would have. Appropriately enough, reporters usually try to keep themselves out of their stories, but sometimes it serves readers’ interests for the reporters to involve themselves more deeply.

I think Dillon could have presented that incident in such a way as to show the extra effort she made to get Froman’s side of the story, without calling too much attention to herself. It would have made the story more interesting, and it would have satisfied the reader that Dillon had done everything within reason to try to get to Froman.

Here’s some good news for local newspaper fans: Statistics released today by the Audit Bureau of Circulations — “the gold standard in media audits” — shows that The Star’s Sunday circulation rose 2.1 percent between Sept. 30, 2009, and March 31.

Saturday circulation was up by 1.3 percent, and weekday circulation was virtually unchanged.

Sunday circulation stood at 314,449 at the end of March, compared with 307,974 as of last September. Despite the period gain, circulation remains down significantly from March 31, 2009, when it was 333,006.

Saturday circulation, meanwhile, rose from 229,993 to 233,090 during the most recent reporting period. (Like Sunday circulation, that figure remains down from a year ago.)

Weekday circulation came in at 216,446, versus 216,226 as of last September. Daily circulation stood at 234,667 a year ago.

ABC issues new circulation figures every six months.

Before heading into the garden, I have a big thank-you to send out. Yesterday was a huge day here at JimmyCsays. The month-old blog had nearly five times its previous high number of viewers, and it was all because of a fellow blogger named Alan D. Mutter, whom I contacted a few days ago about blogging advice. 

In his blog, Reflections of a Newsosaur, Alan wrote about my Monday post, where I printed verbatim a 1994 speech by Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, then chairman of The New York Times Co. In the speech, given here in Kansas City, Sulzberger essentially dismissed the “information superhighway” as so much folderol. 

Jim Romenesko, who runs a blog on the website of the Poynter Institute, a nonprofit journalism school, then picked the story up from Mutter’s blog and linked to JimmyCsays. With that, the floodgates opened. 

So, my head is bowed and hat off today to Alan Mutter and Jim Romenesko…and also to Julius Karash, a friend and fomer Kansas City Star colleague, who had the presence of mind 16 years ago to save a copy of the speech he covered that night at the Westin Crown Center hotel. 

Now, as I waft slowly back to earth in my parachute, here’s this week’s edition of Plums & Prunes, a constructive critique of recent material in The Kansas City Star.  

Plums  

~ “He showed class for them; now they show class for him” (A-1, Friday, April 16) — If you can read Lisa Gutierrez’s story about cancer-stricken, wheelchair-bound Connor Olson and not choke up, you need to have your emotional meter checked. The school arranged a spur-of-the-moment graduation ceremony for Connor because his condition had worsened , and everyone was afraid he might not make it to the scheduled graduation. The last line struck like a head butt. Having made it through the ceremony, Connor was in pain. “We’re going home,” his Dad told him. “We’ll be there in a minute.” Tremendous photos by John Sleezer. The bad news: Connor died Wednesday night, surrounded by friends and family.   

~ “To youths, the Plaza is no place like home” (A-4, Friday Aril 16) — Columnist Mike Hendricks forced the reader to stop and reflect on the Plaza situation: It’s more complicated than meets the eye. The long-term fix involves “making…neighborhoods safer, more prosperous and filled with more opportunities” for young people.     

~ “A threat to children’s learning” (A-1, Saturday, April 17) — Another winner in the ongoing series about cuts to the Kansas and Missouri budgets. In this one, Jefferson City correspondent Jason Noble reported on reductions to the Parents as Teachers program in Missouri.  

~ “Dancing with the stars” — (A-4 photo, Saturday, April 17) — Sleezer scored again with an energetic, effervescent  photo of professional dancers leading Shawnee Mission West High School dancers in steps from “A Chorus Line.”  

~ “Community of mourners meets online” (A-1, Sunday, April 18) — Mara Rose Williams wrote a compelling report on how people, hundreds of thousands of them each month, write to the dead  on the website Legacy.com. Thomas Fahey, a 26-year-old Johnson County horse trainer who died in a plane crash in 2006, is one who gets a lot of “mail.”   

~ “For kite fanciers, to live is to fly” (B-1 photo, Sunday, April 18) — Fetching, horizontal photo of huge “creature kites” being flown a day earlier at the Longview campus of Metropolitan Community Colleges. Photographer Fred Blocher captured the fanciful image.  

~ “Health reform for the disabled” (A-1, Monday, April 19) — Business writer Diane Stafford, who serves up a regular regimen of reader-service stories, unveiled a little-known facet of the health care reform act — an insurance pool to help workers who become injured or ill pay for long-term care.     

~ “A mission for music in KC” (A-8, Tuesday, April 20) — In a “tribute” obituary, Brian Burnes unveiled the interesting life path of former Kansas City Symphony cellist Norman Hollander, who died April 7 in Greenwich, Conn.  

Target Field

~ “Twin Cities’ pride is also KC’s” (D-3, Tuesday, April 20) — Business writer Kevin Collison took the readers behind the facade of the new Target Field, which looks inviting on TV. Designed by Kansas City-based Populous, the field has many environmental features, including “a massive cistern system buried under the warning track to contain storm water that will be filtered and reused to wash down the seating bowl and for irrigation.”  

~ “Reform debate ropes in all sides” (A-1 Wednesday, April 21) — A good, explanatory story by Dave Helling on the financial reform package that Congress is grappling with. Helling gave it a “local” touch by quoting Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill.    

~ “Earth Day finds itself in a pickle, politically” (A-1, Thursday, April 22) — Winning headline and story about Earth Day turning 40. Reporter Matt Campbell applied a light and breezy touch to the political storm that is global warming. The story was accompanied by a snappy help box listing simple things people can do to help the environment…like giving up bottled water and driving less.

Prunes  

Bag of prunes

#% “Ire rises as fees hit new altitude” (A-1, Sunday, April 18) — Transportation writer Brad Cooper certainly had me worked up…until, that is, I looked behind the front wall of his story on Spirit Airlines announcing that it would charge $45 for carry-on luggage starting in August. If you go to Spirit’s website, you find that the $45 applies only if you check your carry-on at the gate. If you do it by phone or online, it’s $30, and if you become a member of the Spirit “club,” the fee is just $20.  This is a case of selective reporting, presenting the readers with limited facts that make the story as dramatic as possible. Poor form. (Cooper also didn’t bother to tell readers whether Spirit charges for checked bags. It does.)  

#% “Truman Medical puts the gourmet in hospital grub” (A-1, Tuesday, April 20) — Nothing wrong with this story about a Truman Medical Center pilot project to improve the quality of patient food; it just doesn’t deserve front-page “play,”  at least not on this day. This is an attempt by the editors — often valid — to give readers some relief from the tide of heavy, serious stories that roll off the front page. However, some days, it doesn’t pay to put formula over function. A good substitute for this story would have been a New York Times offering about how hackers broke into Google’s password system that controls access by millions of users worldwide. 

Etc. 

:: “Spark is lost” (B-1, Wednesday, April 21) — Sam Mellinger captured the perseverance, adventurousness and energetic spirit of former Kansas State quarterback Dylan Meier, who died Monday in a hiking accident in the Ozark National Forest in Arkansas. But I, along with many others who have hiked in Newton County, would like to have had a better fix on the location. At the very least, the editors could have ordered up a locater map. 

:: Congratulations to The Star for winning the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award for its five-part series last year on human trafficking in the United States. Last month, Investigative Reporters and Editors Inc. honored the series, which was reported and written by Laura Bauer, Mike McGraw and Mark Morris.