Allow me to explain in part what’s wrong with big city, daily newspaper journalism and why the populace in the towns of Platte City, Parkville and Weston have it so good…
Let’s start with the Kansas City Star where for 16 years I had the highest read column in the newspaper – four to five per week, with four to six separate news items in each.
Once upon a time – like for a century or so – the Star had an effective monopoly on what passed for local news. And something like that can go to people’s heads. You know, power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Not surprisingly the editors and underpaid reporters at 18th and Grand grew to take it for granted that they knew what was best for people, readers, local and national officials – heck, for pretty much every Tom, Dick and Harriett who for whatever reason ever found themselves in the limelight/crosshairs. During those many decades, the axiom, don’t pick fights with people who buy their ink by the barrel prevailed and when newspaper editors said, “Jump,” the answer more often than not was, “How high?”
So it was that in the Star’s infinite wisdom it decided that enjoying that much power and influence required them to dial back in a “responsible” way, the reporting of news.
Stuff like leaving out details, such as the race of bad guys, street crime in places like the Plaza and other politically impolitic details…so as not to offend…anyone.
Platte County Landmark main man Ivan Foley
Here recently, in a single week, the Star went from calling on KCK police and the Schlitterbahn Waterpark to cough up the gory details as to how a 10 year-old white kid died on the ridiculously dangerous Verrückt waterslide, to ignoring them.
So when the newspaper did find out and everybody else in the free world began reporting that the kid was decapitated, it covered it up. You know, to somehow spare the family’s feelings. Never mind that the Star couldn’t run enough giant color pics of the kid from when he was still alive and stretched for days minor details pertaining to the accident into countless front page stories online and in print.
Despite it’s firm grip on political correctness and sensibility, never let it be said that the Star was above milking a story.
Now here’s where Platte County Landmark publisher/editor Ivan Foley excels, while the brain trust at the Star gets repeated failing grades: for taking lively interesting slices of life and dialing them back into humdrum news shorts and stories.
Seriously, check out these front page headlines from the August 10 Landmark:
“Facilities director accused of stealing from county;” “This Time for DUI: Former R-3 principal arrested again;” “After a Manhunt of Several Hours: Homicide suspect captured at Parkville.” and “Fire death called a homicide.”
I promise you, if any or all of these stories had made it into the pages of the Star they would have been dumbed down to the most mundane headlines and reporting imaginable and buried deep inside the newspaper in items shorter than my attention span.
Now let me let you in on another headline that recently ran in the Landmark:
“Landmark publisher wins national honor.”
Foley was honored by the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues for his aggressive practicing of “accountability journalism.”
Trust me on this one.
You don’t want to get caught with your pants even a tenth of the way down on Foley’s watch. Not if you want to keep your good name, happy home and job.
Screw up in the northland and Foley will make you pay.
Anybody remember when the Landmark outed former Star sports scribe Jason Whitlock for plagiarizing former Star contributing sports columnist Greg Hall? That was a doozy!
The Star?
Eh, maybe if you’re a Republican or some super, over-the-top, obvious type of baddie they’ll take you down or stick up for the public interest. But mostly the day-to-day marching orders are to not rock the boat.
They won’t even tell you how boring those Overland Park dinner theater shows with washed up former TV sitcom stars can be (let alone how mediocre the food is). Not when it’s one of the newspaper’s biggest advertisers. Instead, Star readers are fed advance puff pieces followed by watery, polite reviews with little to no mention of the cuisine.
After choking down however many years of lobbing softball reviews of the plays, longtime Star critic Brian McTavish laid waste to one first chance he got here on KC Confidential.
So you know, count your blessings Northlanders; enjoy your Landmark.
You like pictures Hearne, real, fake, cartoonish. Since the Star isn’t gonna satisfy you, why don’t you photoshop the kid’s real body with bat on his shoulder without the head attached and photoshop blood and connective tissue hanging around the neck. You know, for shi*s and giggles.
hey hearne: WANT TO BE A REAL LOCAL JOURNALIST (now that
Steve Rose and Tom Leathers are gone)?
What about JACK SOCK….from Blue Valley North….one of the top
tennis players in the world….Wimbledon doubleS champion….one of the
most highly respected players in the world (yes,,,you can be a good
guy…be fair and competitive and be respected by your fellow players)…
AND WHO JUST WON A GOLD AND SILVER FOR AMERICA IN RIO.
That’s a great story for a great young man who we know very well.
That’s a great story for who soon will rule the tennis/ATP world.
Maybe that great story needs to be written!
Agreed I did a nice story on Jack when he won doubles last year on the big stage…my nephew played him in High school, I saw it, the guy was great…sadly nobody got excited about him when we covered it maybe now they will…
think he’s moved glaze.
doubles champ.
great kid.
most respected player on ATP
Dead on the money Hearne.
The attitude of the Star is also killing the local newspapers around KC that they own and are destroying.
As usual, you are right. While every reporter wants to be an investigative reporter, breaking that big story like Watergate, there are few around. With a reporter failing to check sources at Rolling Stone a periodical soon to be named the Phi Psi Gazette, after the lawsuit, it isn’t that easy. Great stories do not grow on trees. And then, there are the editors and publishers, saving trees by shortening the article, leaving out the who, what, when, and where, only to expound into why, which is how news becomes an editorial. The idiots at the Star throw something free on to my driveway every Sunday, something that consists of more pages than my local news, a weekly that shows up in the mail on Wednesdays. Yes, McClatchy is failing from the Cass County Democrat to the Kansas City Star. For three shares of McClatchy stock, you can buy a paper, but it’s not just McClatchy. It’s the New York Times, the Washington Post, or the Chicago Tribune. The bias precludes any real news. Including the Star, each has earned my American Standard Two Toilet Award for bi-assed reporting on multiple occasions. I get just as angry at Glenn Beck as I do Arianna Huffington, but I peruse them both, looking for that grain of news, so far missing. However, if you think it is only in print media, think again. At some point, Disney, Comcast, and Time Warner will have to cut their non-profit subsidiaries free because, as we all know, news is money. No viewers means no advertising revenue. No advertising revenue means angry shareholders, and angry shareholders mean new directors and management.
PS. For those who believe what Iran received was not ransom, particularly you at the IRS, my employer wants you to know that the first 14000 I received last year was a gift, and it should not have been taxed. When can I expect my money back?
When you become president.
who readers newspapers? seriously. Everything can be found on the net in seconds.
Old news is in the newspapers. By the time it gets out, the story is already
plastered all over the net and social media.
Like the Russian spy who ran dumpster’s campaign. If you had to read the story
you’d see it on Saturday. Heck..within 2 minutes of dumpster’s firing the
Russian spy and hack for putin it was all over the net.
Newspapers are for old people!
Don’t dislocate your shoulder patting yourself on the back for your high readership, Junior…you were still SOMEHOW found surplus to needs there.
That’s right. The K.C. Star has, for the last several years made singular and noteworthy decisions that have elevated our local fish wrap to the unparalleled pinnacle of journalistic and economic achievement.
As years rolled by and the Pulitzers rolled in, by way of the remarkable talents from such nationally known names as Osterheldt and Diuguid (Winchell and Mencken, move over!), the Star, nobly sat astride a charger and shaped the way we saw things every day. That charger’s name? One Trick Pony.
In Hoopz we trust.
I might be in the minority here but I found the news outlets need to focus on decapitation revolting. For the sake of the family of the child killed I thought all news outlets should have shown more restraint. The fascination with what happened to this poor kid is beyond morbid. It showed no respect to the family whatsoever and no I don’t know them and would never vote for him.
Exactly. Why was it of any importance to know how he died? Was it going to impact someone’s decision going forward? “Well, I was GOING to let my 10-year-old ride it, but if that kid was DECAPITATED, no way, Jose! Now, if one of the bars holding up the net punctured his chest cavity and pierced his heart, well, then, by all means!”
It’s weird to me that people seem so hung up on the manner of death. Why? Why were people so transfixed? Why was it so important that we knew? You know, other than human curiosity/we’re all horrible pieces of sh*t.
It was the attempted hiding of the truth that made the truth even more newsworthy. And, the public has a right to know, especially the public that this ride caters to.
HC you had 16 years and then the powers that be ran you right out of there. Highest read must not have been able to save you, but like your pal Craig, you offering up the real truth isn’t going to happen either. You were overpaid and not that well liked, least not here in the village, so deal with it. I do have to say selling cars does fit right into being the perfect job for you. I mean everyone knows how one can’t trust a used car salesman.
The “Cool Kids” at the Star, “here in the village” didn’t like Hearne.
If Hearne didn’t hop on the Bandwagon, drink the Kool-Aid, raise his voice with a hosanna in the Socialist Echo Chamber Gulag and churn out approved agitprop, then the proles in the “Metropolis Village” marginalized him in the cafeteria during lunch.
I would wear that badge with honor.
No doubt, “That’s a fact Jack” is right. In newsrooms and media companies all over America, where hive minded, sanctimony counts for more amongst agenda driven lemmings toeing the Liberal Company Line, people who don’t fit in with the Progressive News Room Zeitgeist are marginalized.
Susan Atkisson comes to mind.
The Star is just another Democrat PR Bureau for the Left and the charge from someone still employed there, that Hearne didn’t fit in, is prima facie of not only the Star’s failure then, but now.
Go ask your “Thought Leaders” what to write next Jack.
“… for the Left …” is evidence this writer divides our society in half. For the simple minded, either-or may work, but the realities of life are far more complicated. But it takes a bit of mental muscle to understand that, something this writer appears to lack.
“… for the Left …” is evidence this writer divides our society in half. ”
Are you speaking metaphorically or literally? The “Left” is obviously a generalization referring to Liberals/Progressives, who, like you rely on sanctimony and insults when your positions are untenable.
If your “Mental Muscle” has led you by the ring in your nose, to the conclusion that the Star and the lions share of the 4th Estate is objective and unbiased, then my advice would be to hit the gym, your “Mental Muscle” has atrophied.
My reply referred to you. What planet did you say you’re from again?
You’re sitting on your “Mental Muscle”.
hey chuckles the sad clown broke down man.
you quote breitbart and Washington times
all the time…can you tell me they’re not
breitbart.
so glad your hero bannon now running dumpsters
campaign….its gonna kill him.
Hillary now hovering over 350 electoral votes…
its gonna be a landslide.
great comment Laura….you’re new here and haven’t
seen some of Nazi comments/vile disgusting comments
this low rent guy writes.
If you this was bad how about his most famous one:
‘BURN THE JEWS”….
he even agreed with the people who said “there couldn’t
be a holocaust…the ovens were too small”!
sharp dude. then the big man insults a woman.
real classy guy according to cg/glazer.
Birds of a feather flock together.
One more thing, before I hit the road. Hearne is rumored to have a substantial family fortune. Yet, here he is, late in life, humpin his azz off to work every day and on weekends.
Back in the day, when common sense and facts still meant something, my father described that as a “Work Ethic” and pounded it into we kids.
In my opinion, from out here in the hinterlands, you would have to drill down pretty deep, into layer after layer of insouciance and indolence at the Star to find any such motivation.
You guys are anything, but self-starters.
Okay, you can “hit the road” now. Oops, I think the door just hit your backside as you were leaving.
Are you related to Harley?
Agreed I did a nice story on Jack when he won doubles last year on the big stage…my nephew played him in High school, I saw it, the guy was great…sadly nobody got excited about him when we covered it maybe now they will…
My story on Jack Sock…blue valley north kid who is now one of the
top ATP tennis players is a great possible story.
Great kid/and is the most repected/honest and loved player on the pro
cicuit.
won Wimbledon doubles and in rio WON A GOLD AND SILVER MEDAL
FOR AMERICA.
Now the steve rose has moved on…and tom leathers is gone…this wold be
a great story for you hearne.
We love kcc and want it to grow as the other media fall apart and the net
takes over.
That’s twice. Say the same thing five more times, why don’t you? Readers will ignore you five times as much as the first two.
hearne site didn’t publish the first congratulatory note for
the Olympic winner. Did not show up on blog.
So I wrote it again.
Dumbf*ck poster HARLEY LIES….. IT WAS A NICE STORY
ABOUT LOCAL KID DOING WELL.
even glaze pointed it out in one of his previous articles.
Instead of being the a$$ you are….I hope you enjoyed the
story about something positive.
You only write about negative shit….and you’re a loser.
so if you disagree with Harley I still have the 10K to take
your fat a$$dwon.
Don’t mess with the king you low life.
I’m riding the crest of the wave of being the kind of kcc
(for what it’s worth) with my spot on 100% correct predictions.
Why are you such a d*ck? I know…you’re probably wislon
in disguise…or some other p.o.s. who has realizedwhat
thousand of reader have come to know as fact
Very simply…HARLEY IS THE KING OF KCC!
No whiny…no southern man….no hearne…no glaza…no wislon…no dead man…no chuckles (this dummie thought
a sale on jeans was a pokemon event. What a douche!)….
WHERE DID ALL YOU LOSERS GO?
HARLEY IS ROLLING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ivan Foley does a great job keeping this Peyton Place called Platte County on its toes. I think if he keeps digging, he will uncover something going on in the Sheriff’s department. They think their untouchable.
What do you think the Sheriff’s office is? It is the bully enforcer of the county magistrate.
The Star is a mainstream media print organization owned by the propaganda machine corpocracy, which is part and parcel of an inverted-totalitarian government. What do you expect? Unless you are going to join with other citizens with integrity and violently eradicate this power-structure by Guerilla Warfare, the only viable and moral-imperative, you can’t bitch and point the finger.
The “burn down the house so you may become the king of ashes” philosophy isn’t attractive. Guerilla Warfare? You’ve watched too many movies.
I applied for a job once in a small town and one of the board members provided me with a tour, noting the amenities the town offered. We have this, we have that, oh and we have this, too, he said. Kansas City is much like that small town I toured. The city has its university, symphony; its media, corporate headquarters and sports teams. But, it’s still a small town with small town attitudes. People protect their own.
Geez Laura, where have you been?
Don’t be a stranger, we need a lot more of your perspective to counter the rhetorical palaver we get here otherwise.
Thanks.
There used to be honor in reporting. The beat reporter would hone his craft and now and again expose something important. Then Woodward and Bernstein happened. The J schools filled up.. and reporting became all about awards and pedigrees.