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

The great joy of a high school or college reunion is, of course, reconnecting with former classmates and exchanging memories and life experiences since graduation.

It’s also a time, though, for taking stock. And I’m not talking about casual observations like, “Gee, you sure haven’t changed much,” or thoughts like, “What the heck happened to him?”

It’s an occasion ripe for taking stock of one’s self.

And so, last weekend, at the 50-year reunion of my 1968 graduating class at Bellarmine University, Louisville, KY, I spent a lot of time not just enjoying the company of former classmates but also thinking about how I had changed from 1968 to 2018.

The reunion consisted of three major school-sponsored events — a reception last Friday evening, a campus tour and dinner Saturday, and a brunch Sunday. About 40 of us graduates, however, had a reunion within a reunion. We were the charter members of a social organization that sprang up on campus in my sophomore year, 1965-66. We called ourselves Podiceps, after a species of bird.

We started out as an intramural, touch football team, but it blossomed into a social club, complete with a “clubhouse” in an unused church rectory near downtown Louisville. A few of our out-of-town members (the “day-hops” lived in town; the “dormies” were from out of town) lived in the rectory, but its highest and best use was as a party venue. One member was good with sound systems, and we’d dance late into the night in the rectory to songs like “Do You Believe in Magic” by The Lovin’ Spoonful and “In the Midnight Hour” by Wilson Pickett.

But let me back up and tell you how I came to be a Podicep…Back then, as a freshman and sophomore in 1964 and 1965, I was coming out of a period of depression — undiagnosed but significant — that had enveloped me in about my junior year in high school. Coming out of the depression, I felt a sense of release and newfound excitement, but I was battling other demons, too, including a go-it-alone personality and a totally unwarranted superiority complex.

At Bellarmine, as in high school, I didn’t participate in any extracurricular activities and, living near campus, I would go to class and come home. (As I came out of the depression, I also became emboldened enough to start striking up flirtations with girls who were attending Ursuline, an all-girls school with which Bellarmine, an all-boys school, was in the process of merging.)

It came as a surprise to me, then, when the Podiceps approached me in my junior year about joining the club. I was flattered but by no means had my heart set on becoming a Podicep.

There was no grooming period or hazing. All you had to do was sit for a group interview, following which, the members voted. In my interview, I remember being edgy and accusing the group, in so many words, of exclusivity. After that performance, I thought I’d be blackballed for sure, but, lo and behold, they voted me in.

Even in the fold, however, I kept my distance. As I recall, I didn’t participate in events other than the parties and didn’t become close friends with any of my fellow Podiceps.

After graduation, I never looked back and rarely thought about the Podiceps…until earlier this year.

**

One of our 27 founding members — a retired general with the Kentucky National Guard — came up with the idea of having a Podiceps reunion in conjunction with the Bellarmine reunion. He began sending out group emails, and the idea immediately took root. In an Easter Sunday conference call, it was decided that we’d have a Podiceps reunion dinner after the official Bellarmine “welcome” reception.

As the weeks passed and plans firmed up, I got increasingly excited about the prospect of the Podiceps reunion. Even though I had been just a marginal member, I found myself thrilled that I had been a part of this group within a group. A half century after the fact, my sense of identity as a member of the Podiceps was swelling.

At the same time, I was also eager to redeem myself with at least some of the 27 founding members of the Podiceps and show them I had changed, that I had shed the inflated sense of self-importance I lugged around back then.

The Friday night Podiceps dinner took place at the Louisville Boat Club, where the retired general is a member. It was a wonderful event, with several former leaders of the group speaking about their memories of the Podiceps and why being a member had been special to them.

One of the speakers was Mike Nabicht, who was Podiceps president when I became a member. Mike was three years older than the rest of us, owing to the fact he didn’t start college straight out of high school. All of us looked up to Mike because he was extremely intelligent, had great organizational skills and was blessed with premature maturity. I had not been close with Mike in college but had always recognized and respected his level of maturity and knew he was the essential bonding agent for the entire group. Without him, we would have been far less of an organization than we were.

Friday night, I sat at a table with Mike and his wife Mary Jane but didn’t get a chance to talk to him because he was on the other side of the table.

The next day, though, in passing before taking our seats at the Bellarmine reunion dinner on campus, he said, “Let’s talk.” I was flattered that he wanted to talk to me and, although we were at different tables, I determined to seek him out during the course of the evening.

When I saw he was free later, I pulled up a chair, and we began talking. He told me about his main health problems — including an arthritic spine, which limits his mobility — and about his career as owner-operator of a company that produced religious educational films. His most significant production was a film about Mother Teresa of Calcutta, who was later awarded The Bellarmine Medal, the school’s highest award.

But Mike didn’t do all the talking. He asked me about my career and family, and I told him about Patty (who couldn’t make the trip) and her business producing liturgical garments and about our children Brooks and Charlie.

The next morning, Sunday, we talked at length again, just he and I, at a reunion brunch. That conversation got more personal, and at one point he noted that I had been something of a fringe member of the Podiceps. “You seemed kind of angry,” he said. I readily acknowledged that and said, “Chip on the shoulder.”

“Yes,” Mike said, “that was it…But you’re different now. You’ve changed.”

On Sunday night, the retired general and his wife hosted a closing party at their home for the Podiceps and their spouses — those who had come, anyway. Once again, Mike and I talked one on one before heading to different tables with our plates of lasagna. As the sun set on an unusually cool June evening, we chatted on the deck, happy to be in each other’s company one final time before wrapping up a special weekend and resuming our everyday lives.

As I was leaving, I walked into the dining room, where a group of six or seven people were sitting and talking. Mike was among them.

“So long, fellow Podiceps,” I said. “It’s been great being with you.”

They smiled and waved. As I started for the front door, Mike pointed at me and, with a big smile, said, “You’re a better person than you were in college!”

I tell you, I left that party walking on air.

The only thing surprising about Gov. Eric Greitens’ resignation announcement yesterday afternoon was the timing.

With the pressure mounting on him by the hour, and with his days of reckoning approaching, it seemed as if an announcement could come at any time.

So, as a reader, I would like to have seen news reports focus on two things: The timing of the resignation and a detailed description of Tuesday’s behind-the-scenes maneuvering and the attendant emotions and tensions on display.

I have now read several newspapers’ accounts of the governor’s announcement, and none was satisfying on its own. Particularly disappointing was The Star’s front-page story.

Now, granted, this was an incredibly challenging assignment, with the governor taking the podium at 4:15 p.m., and all reporters, photographers and camera operators involved had to move very quickly.

Still, as great a job as The Star has done reporting developments leading up to the resignation, I would have expected a much better story than what it produced.

Here are some of the things lacking in The Star’s story:

:: Where the resignation announcement took place. (Other papers said in the governor’s office, but it looked from photos like a large conference room outside the governor’s actual office.)

:: What time it took place. (Only the News Tribune of Jefferson City reported the time: 4:15 p.m.)

:: The frenzied activity and preparation that attended the news conference and, later, Greitens’ body language and appearance.

On the last point, the Springfield News-Leader said, “Greitens was mostly stoic during his announcement. He did not take questions. At one point, he appeared to choke up.”

The Columbia Daily Tribune wrapped up its story like this: “Choking back tears, he added, ‘The time has come, though, to tend to those who have been wounded and to care for those who need us most.’ ”

**

Regarding the timing of the resignation, The Star didn’t report until the fifth column of text — 28 inches into the story — that earlier Tuesday a Cole County judge had ordered a political committee formed by Greitens to submit critical information to a Missouri House investigative committee.

The Columbia Daily Tribune put that key fact in the third paragraph of its story:

“On Tuesday, Cole County Circuit Judge Jon Beetem ordered Greitens to comply with legislative subpoenas for documents from A New Missouri, the not-for-profit set up soon after Greitens took office to promote his agenda. Greitens did not mention that ruling when he made a short announcement to reporters that he would step aside as of Friday.”

(The Star’s lead editorial also highlighted the timing of the judge’s order and Greitens’ announcement.)

**

The main thing I was looking for, however, was a description of the behind-the-scenes maneuvering and preparation that led up to the dramatic announcement.

The Star had nothing, absolutely nothing, related to that, and it was extremely disappointing.

It was, in my opinion, primarily the editors’ fault. The main reporters on the story were Jason Hancock, The Star’s Jefferson City correspondent, and Bryan Lowry, The Star’s chief political reporter. (Lowry will soon be leaving The Star to go to McClatchy’s national desk in Washington.)

Understandably, Hancock and Lowry were focused on the political situation, but an editor should have had one of them, or another reporter, write only about the atmospherics.

If you want to know what I mean about atmospherics, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch came closest to covering the lead-up to the big announcement.

The PD’s story concluded with a segment titled “The Scene in the Capitol.”

Here’s how it read:

The governor’s end came in a mad scramble that was, for some, emotional.

A bit after 3 p.m. Tuesday, no one was stationed at the front desk of the governor’s reception room. A woman who walked through the office said Greitens’ press secretary was “in a meeting.”

Around 3:15 p.m., a Post-Dispatch reporter stopped by (Lt. Gov. Mike) Parson’s office to see if his press secretary, Kelli Jones, had heard anything about a possible resignation.

“I have not heard anything,” she said.

Over the next several minutes, Greitens’ staffers paced up and down the second floor hallway entering and exiting their office suite. Parker Briden, the governor’s press secretary, was asked if a resignation was imminent. He said he would have “a statement a little bit later today. About to send an email.”

Two other Greitens officials, Drew Erdmann and Will Scharf, declined to respond to reporter questions as they walked down the hallway.

Capitol maintenance workers hauled a podium up a spiraled Rotunda stairwell and to Greitens’ office.

A line of reporters and other Capitol staffers began to gather outside Greitens’ office.

Greitens’ chief legal counsel, Lucinda Luetkemeyer, wept during and after the governor’s announcement.

Afterwards, Erdmann, who was brought in to serve as the chief operating officer for the administration, was asked what’s next. He could only shrug.

**

Pretty good, pretty good. But I wish the PD’s story had also contained a description of Greitens at the podium — the look in his eye, the tone of his voice, movements or expressions that reflected defiance, acceptance or internal struggle.

What I wanted was the “sights, sounds and smells” from yesterday afternoon — all of them. Unfortunately, none of the stories I read captured them satisfactorily.

…Yes, I am a tough, demanding reader. But, really, what I’m asking is not too much. And I’ll bet a lot of readers would have appreciated an insightful, accurate report of those sights, sounds and smells.

A recent article The Star published about black drivers getting more tickets than whites has Kansas City Police Chief Rick Smith hot under his dress-blue collar.

The Star’s story, which ran Sunday, May 20, analyzed traffic tickets given to Kansas City residents in 2017 and found “significant racial disparities among those ticketed.”

In a long blog post dated May 23, Smith accuses The Star, in so many words, of treating the Police Department unfairly in the story.

Smith did not take issue with The Star’s statistics or the assertion that African-Americans got a disproportionate share of tickets. What he strongly objected to was a single sentence in the story:

“Police did not respond to The Star’s request for comments for this article.”

What he objects to specifically is The Star’s refusal to share with the PD the data it analyzed — and the source of its data — so that, in Smith’s words, the PD could have time to review the data and respond appropriately.

**

This was a story that two relatively new reporters — Aaron Randle (two years at The Star) and Kelsey Ryan (hired about 15 months ago) — worked on for probably a few weeks. In the business, it’s called an “enterprise” story, meaning it did not spring directly from breaking news but was the product of a decision to examine an ongoing situation that had persisted for some considerable time.

The following two sentences comprise The Star’s jumping off point for its analysis and conclusions:

“Of the traffic tickets given to Kansas City residents, 60 percent went to African-Americans, who make up 30 percent of the population. Thirty-seven percent of tickets went to whites, who make up 59 percent of the population.

“Among Kansas City residents, speeding is overwhelmingly the top traffic offense for all races — except African-Americans. The top traffic ticket charge for African-Americans is ‘state license plate required,’ followed by ‘no insurance’ and then speeding.”

The point of Randle’s and Ryan’s story wasn’t the disproportionate number of tickets given to African-Americans, it was how African-Americans who got numerous tickets could have their lives disrupted and livelihoods put at risk because of the situation.

In the case of a woman who has 26 outstanding tickets, The Star said…

“Her ordeal highlights the hardships faced by thousands of drivers in Kansas City — particularly poor African-Americans suffering from a deluge of problems caused by traffic tickets. The tickets pile up, burying already poor residents under a mass of fines and creating a financial pit few are able to pull themselves out of.”

**

Smith — to repeat — didn’t take issue with disproportionate ticketing or how an onslaught of tickets affected individual drivers. He was trained on what he perceived as The Star’s unwillingness to share its data and give the PD a chance to analyze it and then respond.

In his blog, Smith laid out the PD’s side at length. I’m going to quote several paragraphs because I think it’s important to include this chunk of his blog so you can see it in context.

This from Smith:

The Star first contacted Media Unit commander and public information officer Captain Lionel Colón by e-mail at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, May 15. The reporter stated they’d gotten statistics (they did not say from where), and then asked these questions:

1. Why are African-Americans being assigned tickets at such a disproportionate rate?

2. Why does the 64130 zip code account for such a disproportionate amount of tickets?

3. Some have interpreted this data as demonstrating a pattern of ‘over-policing’ and targeting of AA motorists by the KCPD. What is the department’s response to that?

Captain Colón responded early the next morning asking what the data were so we could review it in order to properly answer their questions. The Star declined to provide the data, other than directing us to public information from Municipal Court. They refused to say with whom they worked at Municipal Court to obtain the data or what kind of dataset they’d requested. Captain Colón said it would be irresponsible for him to speak to the data without seeing it.

Over the next few days, we worked to try to extract our own ticket data from 2017 by race and set up an appointment with leaders at Municipal Court to compare. Captain Colón maintained daily e-mail contact with The Star during that time.

On Friday, May 18, we told the reporter that since we could not see the data The Star used to make responsible and informed comments, we were working to pull the data ourselves. We told him there were several other large-scale public information requests that had been submitted previously from other organizations that – to be fair to everyone – needed to be addressed first. The reporter responded that it was too late, anyway, and the article would run on Sunday.

The Star then reported that KCPD declined to comment, which is false. We requested The Star correct their statement, “Police did not respond to The Star’s request for comments to this article,” and they declined.

Daily e-mail conversation between KCPD and reporters and editors is not a “no comment” situation. “No comment” is not a response that we give. Sometimes we have to protect the integrity of an investigation and can’t say much, and other times – as is the case here – we need more time to review a large amount of information (that wasn’t even made available to us for review). Just to pull that information ourselves took more time than The Star allotted us for making a statement on it.

In summary, The Star reporters gave the police department 2.5 days to respond to reams of data they wouldn’t show us. Members of The Star have had the opportunity to review this data since February 2018, according to Municipal Court.

**

You can chew on all that and form your own opinions, but from my perspective there are two main problems:

1. If The Star still had a reporter assigned full time to the Kansas City Police Department, as it did for decades before severe reportorial retrenchment, this “stand-off” probably would not have occurred. The police reporter probably would have been involved in the story, and even if not directly involved, he or she could have functioned as a conduit between the reporters and police commanders. As it is, neither Randle nor Ryan is a police reporter or is in regular contact with KCPD…Randle’s LinkedIn profile describes him as a “features reporter and pop culture writer.” In announcing the hiring of Ryan in March 2017, The Star described her as an “investigative/data reporter.” What that means, basically, is she does a lot of computer-assisted reporting. Perhaps magnifying the communication problem is that Colon is new to the communications office, having taken charge of it just a few months ago.
2. There is far too much reliance on email (and, of course text) communication these days. And I don’t mean just on the reporting front. Email is a valuable tool, but far too many people have made it (and texting) the end-all, be-all of communication. Email communication on sensitive and substantive matters, especially where details are important, opens the way for miscommunication and hardening of positions. It’s far preferable to either pick up the phone and try to talk a situation through with someone or, better yet, arrange to go meet in person and hash things out.

In this case, the blame falls on both sides. It’s simply a situation that should never have occurred.

On the one hand, I’ve had dealings with the Police Department communications office, and those officers almost always want information requests submitted in writing. I can understand that; they want to have a record, for their supervisors, of who requested what. At the same time, someone at HQ should have the good sense to put a halt to back-and-forth emails on a sensitive issues (like the racial dimension of traffic tickets) and pick up the phone and request a person-to-person meeting. One more thing: If the chief didn’t get involved in this until after the fact — and I have no idea how that played out — he should have been.

On the other hand, I suspect that many reporters, not just at The Star but at major papers throughout the country, have come to rely too heavily on electronic communication with sources and subjects. That’s a consequence of having far fewer reporters trying to cover about the same number of “beats” reporters have covered from time immemorial, such as law enforcement, education and local and state government. I understand it’s a lot easier to sit at your desk and fire off an email than it is to pick up the phone and play the “missed your call” game, but, in the end, that’s how you get the best and most precise information and how you come closest to clarifying opposing positions.

This hardening of positions, on this particular story, is just ridiculous…For Christ’s sake, couldn’t somebody at 18th and Grand have called somebody at 12th and Locust and had a fuckin’ chat???

“Daily email conversation,” as Smith described whatever dialogue took place, qualifies in no way, shape or form as a conversation.

You know how I hate to be the turd in the punch bowl, especially on a holiday weekend, but, my God, disappointment seems to lurk at every turn.

Let’s take a look…

:: In her last race ever, 36-year-old race car driver Danica Patrick wrecked her car in Turn 2 about a third of the way through today’s Indianapolis 500. Thus ends a long career that made her a sex symbol and undoubtedly made her sponsor, Go Daddy, a lot of money but never got her to the winner’s circle at Indy…On the plus side here, Indy seems to have come up with the answer to who should succeed the late Jim Nabors as pre-race singer of “Back Home Again in Indiana.” For the second year in a row, tenor Jim Cornelison got rave reviews. (For the record, “Back Home Again…” is a pretty good song, but nothing compares to “My Old Kentucky Home” when it comes to songs played at sporting events.)

:: About the weirdest concert-related development I’ve ever heard of took place last night in Charlotte, NC, when 85-year-old Willie Nelson, who was supposed to headline his own Outlaw Music Festival concert, abruptly walked off stage before uttering a note. The video shows him walking haltingly onstage, briefly attaching the guitar strap around his shoulder and just as quickly putting the instrument down and starting to walk off. As the fans cheered — obviously not knowing what Willie was up to — he flung his cowboy hat into the crowd and proceeded out a back door. A voice can be heard on the video saying, “He’s outta here.” Concert producer Live Nation tweeted that he was taken ill, but another Twitter user said, “This is someone p_____ off, not something else.” No word from Willie on why the corncob up his ass, but, in any event, how would you like to be one of the thousands of people who paid $60 and up to witness that?

:: Let’s turn to our local disappointments now…The Kansas City Royals are appallingly, depressingly bad. I watched yesterday’s game, which they lost 4-3 in Texas when the Rangers’ Shin-Soo Choo hit a walk-off home run in the 10th inning. The most maddening part was the seventh inning when the Royals’ Hunter Dozier smashed a double to deep center field  to lead off the inning. At that point, all the Royals had to do to take the lead was move Dozier over to third on a bunt, base hit or even a decently placed ground ball to the first base side and then bring Dozier home on a fly ball, passed ball, wild pitch or, again, a decently placed ground ball. But what happened? Ryan Goins hit a ground ball right to the first baseman, who held Dozier at second and stepped on the bag to record Goins out. Alcides Escobar hit a pop-up, John Jay flied out, and just like that the threat was over…Also, catcher Salvy Perez looked terrible, swinging wildly, as is his wont, at balls about two feet outside the strike zone. I say, trade him. Trade him in July and get some prospects — prospects who either have plate discipline or are willing to learn it. Salvy and his splash have run their course here in Kansas City.

:: The quest to find a way to honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. has become a big mess. When this hit the press several weeks ago, I was stoutly against the proposal espoused by a group of black ministers and Freedom Inc. leaders to rename The Paseo as Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. So, I welcomed Mayor Sly James’ move in appointing an advisory commission to make a recommendation on how King’s legacy should be honored…The backdrop here is that James has a contentious relationship with Freedom Inc., and I think that in naming the commission he was trying to pull the rug our from under the ministers and Freedom Inc…James’ gambit backfired, however, after the commission came back with an equivocal recommendation: Either name the new airport after King or rename 63rd Street.

James hadn’t bothered to tell the commission that the Kansas City Aviation Department had voiced strong objections (not publicly but to James) at the possibility of naming the airport after King. Aviation officials said the Kansas City International name needed to be retained for marketing purposes. (There’s also been significant public opposition to naming the airport after Dr. King.) At the same time, a major problem came to light regarding renaming a street or boulevard, when a renaming is proposed at the grass-roots level: A city ordinance requires 75 percent of property owners along a given street to approve a renaming.

That’s a virtual impossibility for any street or boulevard that extends several miles.

With all the misdirection and fumbling, the advantage seems to have turned strongly back toward the ministers and Freedom Inc. They reportedly are proceeding with an initiative petition that could put the proposal to rename The Paseo on the November ballot.

If voters approve a name change, it supersedes the ordinance requirement for 75-percent approval of property owners.

At this point, I’m just about ready to throw in the towel and vote yes…Now, it’s The Paseo that’s dying; long live Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.

Now here’s a story that makes a body cringe.

The New York Times published a story online today about the disastrous decline of activity at Memphis International Airport after Memphis lost its hub status in 2013.

It had been a hub for Northwest, but in the wake of the 2008 merger between Delta and Northwest, Delta — based in Atlanta — decided it didn’t need a hub in Memphis. As a result, the passenger count at Memphis International went from more than 11 million in 2007, the last full year before the merger, to about 4 million last year.

The NYT story was accompanied by photos (like the one below), showing a virtually lifeless airport.

While the story didn’t send shivers down my spine, it did give me pause.

Here we are in Kansas City with about the same passenger count — 11.5 million — that Memphis had before losing its hub status. And here we are, about to build a new $1 billion terminal, replacing the three horseshoe-shaped terminals dating to the early 1970s.

Reading The Times’ story makes me very glad the people planning our new terminal appear were conservative in their projections. We lost our hub status a long time ago and no longer need three, or even two, terminals. One should do just fine, for the foreseeable future.

Plans for the new terminal initially called for 35 gates, but that was upped to 39 last month. I recall seeing at least one letter to the editor in which the writer questioned why so few gates had been planned at first and went on to criticize the four-gate expansion as less than ambitious.

Maybe that letter writer will feel differently if he or she sees the story about Memphis.

…Besides the fact that Kansas City has long since absorbed the downturn that came from loss of hub status, another factor that helps keep me positive about the new airport is that this is a bigger market than Memphis and has fewer large airports within striking range.

Think about it: While our nearest major airports are St. Louis, Chicago, Denver and maybe Dallas-Fort Worth, Memphis is relatively close to at least three other major cities — St. Louis, Louisville and Nashville — in addition to Atlanta, the busiest airport in the country.

Fortunately for Memphis residents, the city has not invested heavily in a major expansion in more than 40 years.

Like KCI, Memphis International has three terminals. The original, single terminal was built at a cost of $6.5 million and opened in 1963. In 1974, a $31.6 million expansion added two sub-terminals and corresponding concourses.

Now, Memphis is spending big bucks to retrench. On the immediate horizon is a $219 million renovation, which will involve closing Terminal B while it gets updated and imporved. When that is complete, it will reopen and terminals A and C will close indefinitely. Altogether, about 60 gates will be shut down.

On the plus side, the runways remain busy, largely because Memphis is home to FedEx, which has jets flying in and out day and night. But what a comedown for a proud city! The NYT story said that at the mention of the airport, Memphis area residents generally respond with “a shrug, a grimace or a sad stare.” The story quoted the president of the airport authority as saying the initial reaction of many people was along the lines of, “Oh, my God, we’re not going to be a real city any more.”

**

All we can do in KC is hope that the people who are being paid to design the new terminal know what they’re doing and are projecting accurately. The last thing we want, down the road, is to see a headline like the one on today’s NYT story…

“What’s Worse Than a Crowded Airport? An Empty Airport”

It was a big day in Brookside.

How big, you say? (Thanks for asking.)

Well, the Whole Foods store that has been under construction at 51st and Brookside Boulevard for about three years opened today. I tell you, Brooksiders were beside themselves. (Well, I guess there could have been some non-Brooksiders there, and, of course, we gave them a gracious welcome.)

It was definitely the place to be and be seen. It was mobbed. The close-in, uncovered parking area was like a bumper car zone. (There’s also a spacious garage.)

I knew today was opening day and had thought about going, but I almost didn’t make it. Here’s how it turned out I did…

I had a long-planned lunch with former Mayor Richard L. Berkley and the three people who comprised the Park Board when I covered City Hall back in the late ’80s and early ’90s — Anita Gorman, Ollie Gates and Carl DiCapo.

Berkley doesn’t drive any more, so I picked him up and we drove over to the Gates restaurant at Cleaver Boulevard and The Paseo. Over a lunch of brisket, ribs, chicken, beans and slaw, we talked about the “old days,” as well as current events. On the way back home, Berkley suggested we stop by Whole Foods. “Have you got a few minutes?” he said.

But of course!

Next thing you know, Dick had a shopping cart; I had a basket; and we were in the produce section. We saw several people we knew, including former Kansas City school board member Al Mauro; former state rep and U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Hal Lowenstein; Annette Bloch; and…well, from here, I’ll let the pictures tell the story.

**

It’s Brookside’s new happenin’ place. See you there!

This is a tale of two cities’ newspapers — Kansas City and Omaha.

Although the Kansas City metro area has more than twice the population as that of Omaha, the Omaha World-Herald and The Kansas City Star sell about the same number of print editions each day.

The World-Herald has average Sunday print circulation of 105,266, versus 115,205 for The Star.

When it comes to average Monday to Friday circulation, however, the World Herald leads, with circulation of 82,954 to 72,369 for The Star.

Question is: Given the size differential between the Kansas City and Omaha areas, how could the World-Herald possibly match up favorably in terms of circulation with The Star?

I think there are two main answers.

Population concentration

A high percentage of the Omaha area’s residents — about 50 percent — live in the city proper. In the Kansas City area, slightly more than 75 percent of area residents live in outlying cities, including those on the Kansas side.

As of 2016, KCMO’s population was an estimated 481,000, while Omaha proper had an estimated 447,000 residents. Overall, the KC metro area has about 2.1 million people, compared to slightly less than 1 million for Omaha’s metro area.

As in most metropolitan areas, the Omaha and Kansas City papers have had to retrench the last 10 to 15 years, and that generally has meant less coverage of the suburbs. As their delivery areas have shrunk, metro newspapers have also more tightly circumscribed their coverage areas, with the central city, in each case, getting the most focus.

That being the case, circulation has held up better for the World-Herald because a significantly higher proportion of subscribers lived close in before retrenchment began. Kansas City, on the other hand, lost a much greater percentage of its subscriber base after cutting back suburban coverage.

The World-Herald has long had another demographic advantage: According to Wikipedia, the paper for many years had the highest penetration rate (the percentage of people who subscribe to the publication within the paper’s home circulation area) in the United States.

That segues into the second factor…

Continuity of Local Ownerhip

For many years during its long heyday, The Star was owned by its employees. That period lasted from 1926 — after the death of Laura Kirkwood, the daughter of KC Star founder and owner William Rockhill Nelson — until 1977.

The Star then entered a period of corporate ownership that has seen the paper spiral downward. For 20 years, it had a good corporate owner, Capital Cities Inc., but then it fell to an entertainment company, Walt Disney, and soon after that to a once-strong newspaper company, KnightRidder, that began stumbling with the rapid shift to the internet.

Finally, in 2006, The Star passed to the McClatchy Co., out of Sacramento, which paid an outrageous $4.5 billion (and assumed $2 billion in debt) for the KnightRidder newspapers.

The downward spiral got especially bad after the McClatchy purchase, which coincided with the plummeting of print advertising at newspapers throughout the country.

Although millions of readers around the country (and the world, for that matter) shifted from print to online, I believe The Star’s 1977 departure from local ownership hastened and intensified the paper’s falling fortunes.

Over the years, and as the paper passed from one set of outside hands to another, the proprietary feeling that many people previously had about “their” Kansas City Star subsided. And along the way, they started dropping their subscriptions, first slowly and then in avalanche proportions.

…The World-Herald, by comparison, has always been in local hands and Omaha residents have been amazingly loyal to ownership.

Between its founding in 1885 and 1963, the World-Herald was owned and controlled by two families, first the Hitchcocks and later the Doorlys.

In 1963, the heirs of those two families sold the paper to construction magnate Peter Kiewit. Before he died, Kiewit put in place a plan that resulted in employees owning a majority interest in the paper. That continued until 2011, when Berkshire Hathaway bought the World Herald and several smaller Nebraska papers for $150 million.

Berkshire Hathaway, of course, is headed by Omaha’s most famous and wealthiest resident, Warren Buffett.

Buffett bought the paper even though he knew that newspapers were no longer a good bet. Since buying The Buffalo News in 1977, Berkshire Hathaway has accumulated a string of newspapers under its BH Media division. The division’s holdings include the Richmond Times-Dispatch and Roanoke Times in Virginia; the Tulsa World; and the Greensboro News & Record and Winston-Salem Journal in North Carolina.

Partly motivating Buffett is a love of newspapers. In the case of the World-Herald, another factor was wanting to carry on Peter Kiewit’s vision of local ownership. In the face of Buffett’s commitment to his hometown newspaper, Omaha residents have responded by continuing to subscribe to the World Herald in percentages far surpassing those in many cities where corporate raiders have moved in and laid waste.

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That is not to say the World-Herald has been spared the cuts that many major metropolitan dailies have experienced. Just three months ago, in fact, the World-Herald laid off 24 employees and announced a page-count reduction.

The cuts included 11 newsroom employees. The good news, however, was that even with that reduction, the paper still has an editorial staff (editors, writers, photographers, graphic artists, etc.) of more than 100 people. The Star’s editorial staff, however, is well below 100. It could be below 50; I’m not close enough to know. What I do know is that the ax started falling in 2008 and hasn’t stopped.

…In days past, the World-Herald was seen by some reporters as a training ground, or preparatory step, for going to The Star. That is no longer the situation. If I were a young reporter looking to the future, I would cast my lot with the World-Herald. I might look at it differently if The Star was in local hands. But as long as it’s in the clutches of hopelessly-in-debt McClatchy, no, I’d be heading north on Interstate 29.