Maybe it’s just me…
But honestly, I don’t see how much longer the Kansas City Star can go on feeding newsprint readers day-old front page national news, while apologizing for being an additional day behind on local news.
You know, like who won the Kansas City Royals game the night before.
Forget trying to sell Royals fans those cheesy-looking Star umbrellas – just the facts, please. Sure Royals games on the West Coast can run late, but last time I checked, we live in the Information Age.
Seriously, how can the Star expect folks to shell out hundreds of dollars a year for the pleasure of holding their news in their grubby, little hands, if darn near half of it was on TV or online the day before and the other half”s a mix of filler, stories other news organizations wrote and two day old “game stories.”
Six months is a long time to pull up short when Royals Mania has this town (and Lawrence) agog and nobody wants to pick up their sports page and read on the front page that if they want to know who won, etc, they need to go online.
If they wanted to go online – or already had – they wouldn’t need to be notified of that fact on a piece of paper.
Nor would they need to turn to Page 4 to read a game story describing how the Royals lost to Seattle two days ago.
Just like they probably didn’t need to gaze at the front page of today’s Star to learn that a judge sentenced a dude from Kyrgyzstan to death over the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings.
The bottom line:
It’s 2015, no excuses – make it happen – newspaper readers want all the news that’s fit right there in their driveways, each and every morning.
Say what you will about the worldwide web, print is still where the money is – make it happen.
Git R done!
I would gladly subscribe to the paper if it was worth it but it’s not. There is simply not enough content anymore. I honestly miss reading the paper everyday. I enjoy good investigative reporting but it’s no longer there. The people who were best qualified for their job are no longer employed there, instead they’ve been laid off in favor of somebody because of their gender and/or skin color. The paper is so thin and devoid of content it’s sad. Continually downsizing a product while charging more and more is not a good business model.
More KC Star bashing. I’m convinced Hearne that if the Star went under and shut it’s doors you’d have nothing to write about.
Not true, there would always be someone dying. He loves writing about dead people.
But, the Star sucks and is a lost cause….I do think it is a topic that Kansas City does not have a paper to represent it.
I blame the Cinfederate Flag.
Be careful Hearne, when you call the Star out for late news you best make sure you house is in order, A DAY after father’s day we get “Leftridge: Crap for Sale on Craigslist, Father’s Day Edition” and if you were a big concert goer, nothing on these pages is relevant, I guess you can look at the ads and remember the shows you did not attend.
When pointing a finger at the Star’s problems 3 are pointing at you.
You had better get used to it. This is the new McClatchy format. Live, late-breaking news available on the website (look for a re-design by summer’s end). Reduce the print edition to 3 sections, National/Local/Other (look for this by years end). The print edition will focus on the previous days stories, and are supposed to be longer and more in-depth. More thoroughly researched given the added time.
So you get your new “news”, in-the-moment, via the website. You can then get more “journalism” and can read more in-depth on the topic with the next days paper. So the website will report the news, and the paper will expound.
I don’t think this is going to be an easy transition for the KC Star, and I expect there to be some growing pains. But I am excited to see how the Local coverage works out. If it is like they are saying it will be, it has some promise. Less filler from PR firms, and more coverage of City Hall and KC’s great communities.
I don’t think this is such a weighty issue. Newspapers are fading away quickly because they are dinosaurs from an old age. And as such, only old people have any place for them anymore. So the Star will continue to survive for awhile by selling their archaic product to said oldsters. But as the old goats croak out, so too will the Star continue to shrivel away. Someone tell Yale Abadabbadoo and the editorial board that McDonald’s is always hiring. Mickey D’s is a progre**ive burger joint these days, ya know.
Isn’t old goats croaking out a mixed metaphor?
You, too, will be one someday, Indy.