Reporter Mark Morris
Target raising the minimum wage to $9, houses selling like hotcakes, unemployment at the lowest levels in seven years – things are looking up, right?
Not in the newspaper biz – not enough, anyway.
Because on the heels of major layoffs last month, the Kansas City Star is back in the getting rid of employees mode, with more employee buyouts and the specter that even that may not be enough to keep the wolf away from the door.
“Well, after the layoffs last month and them offering buyouts so quickly people are really worried,” says a source at the newspaper. “A month ago an entire press crew got let go and then they laid off four more people this past week. They don’t have anybody working on the day shift anymore. And they haven’t brought in anybody to replace anybody that left’s spot.”
The betting money was that the newspaper would almost have to replace big gun business writer Kevin Collison when he bailed last summer for a safe harbor with Burns & McDonnell in “communications.”
In fact, sources say a number of highly qualified local candidates were interviewed but corporate failed to green light a hire.
In a recent staff meeting, Star editors told the faithful that word from on high was that the newspaper would be placing its main focus on digital, not print.
But since far and away the majority of the newspaper’s revenue is derived from print, it left a more than uncomfortable taste in the mouths of remaining news staffers.
Net result: With the handwriting on the wall, a number of famous folks opted to take the exit money package last week and run.
Darryl Levings
Included in their number, longtime curt reporter Mark Morris, metro desk editor and 40 year veteran Elaine Adams, editorial page designer Robert Merrick, FYI/Star Magazine refugee Darryl Levings and administrative assistant to editor Mike Fannin, Candace Spurney.
And make no mistake, these are not happy, voluntary partings.
Think of them as voluntary walkings of the plank by veterans who know their time is coming.
Case in point, check out this statement on Morris Linked In summary:
“I love newspapers and newspapering. It’s a great life.”
Correction, was a great life.
Worse yet, the scuttlebutt now is that more layoffs could be on the way.
“I also heard that if enough people don’t take the voluntary layoffs there will be more layoffs almost immediately,” adds another source.
HEY HEARNE….EVER HEARD OF THIS GUY….YOU AND JR. AND PLATYPUS
AND WISLUN AND WHINY AND THE REST OF YOUR RIGHT WING BUDDIES
WOULD LOVE TO SEE THIS GUY DIE!!!!!
YOU HATE THE STAR…READ THIS!!!!!!
Finn Bullers, a former Kansas City Star reporter, is making headlines for his fight against KanCare, the state’s Medicaid privatization plan, which he says will kill him. He was the subject on a Pitch cover story about KanCare’s impact on the poor, and has been featured by just about every news outlet in the city.
Bullers suffers from a rare form of muscular dystrophy and requires round-the-clock care. The state wants to reduce the number of hours a caretaker oversees Bullers – by 75 percent, according to KCUR – something he told a state panel could have deadly consequences.
“I hate to sound that dramatic,but if this tube comes off I’ve got two minutes tops — and then I die,” he said, according to the Topeka Capital-Journal.
you guys need to get a heart!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
and Medicaid expansion would cut the uninsured in half in Kansas!
and get brownie some much needed money to cover up his failed experiment
supported by jr. and wislun.
Sweet baby Jesus, Harley. You’re amazing. I add this to the list of defamation based comments. How on earth am I implicated in this guys struggle? Doesn’t really matter. I just owe you a thank you for one MORE comment that goes to the transcript. Much appreciated, you’re making this easy for me and far less expensive.
It’s almost like just get it over with. Break everything down and then build back up what they can.
That’s where it’s headed for sure, Furioso…
But Rome wasn’t built in a day. As such it will continue to be a long, drawn out, slow, painful process as they change the journalistic guard from the Watergate Generation to Generations X, Y & Z
They made Hoopz Chief Editor yet by process of elimination?
Noop
As an old filling station attendant can attest, certain occupations do not add up to a long term career. I think we can add newspaper employee to the mix. Of course, there will be reporters for AP and UPI, but now days, even they are reduced to reporting on the assignment whims of the editors, or taking copy from government sources, whether that be Obama’s press secretary or Putin’s. So, from soda jerks, to carhops, telephone operators, to blacksmiths, we welcome the league of newspaper employees to the occupations protected under the endangered species act.
Just a quick note on what happens to employment promises made by those receiving tax abatement in the form of the Star Building: You can’t push a rope, but building a dinosaur under some conditions is easy. The Star Building, like the empty hangers at KCI, or the rusting buildings of the old KC Steel District will become the city’s monument to echos. From Mayor Kay “Waldo” Barnes and her “if we build it they will come”, perhaps, not even the name will survive on the Sprint Center. Employment promises are never met by businesses seeking tax abatement. Perhaps, Kansas City needs to focus more on business profit, long term growth, and competition than tax revenue, earnings tax revenue of employees, and laws which can be enforced
cfp… makes me wonder what the Star building, in all of it’s glorious green glass presence, could be repurposed for. wish I had something funny to suggest, but nothing leaps to mind, good or bad.
I’m sure the people with some vision in this town will do something with it…
VT Trust/Kroenke/laurie/Block…..
KC is not dead…in fact its experiencing a comeback and all the old guys
who are ready to bury it better hold off.
Architectural tombstone for a once relevant but now irrelevant paper chocked full of ads but no writing?
The Star continue to lose quality reporting staff and yet there they are Diuguid, Shelly and Abouhalkah. When is the last time they wrote something that took you by surprise? When was the last time ifyou were told the subject of one of their columns that you couldn’t guess which position they took and pretty much what they said?
Fire those three the credibility of the paper goes up and you lose nothing that you couldn’t replace with a much better product by letting a local blogger address the topic on a per column basis.
These three are pure dead weight and yet layoff after layoff we watch talented reporters leave while these talentless buffoons continue on. There’s not much hope for The Star when it continues to commit suicide.
Sigh, I was trying to contact Elaine for a job. Yep, time to look elsewhere and leave journalism completely. It’s out like the telegram and typewriter.
Hearne, I’ll have a piece for you in a couple weeks about a day in the life of a modern day newspaper reporter.