Took a while, but…
With Lawrence and Topeka in the rearview mirror, at long last I’m back in the Cowtown. And with a little luck, the folks in the Philippines who work for the local newspaper will have my delivery rectified by Monday and I can complete my return.
Gotta tell ya though, it wasn’t easy (nor inexpensive).
Moving money aside, it’s gonna take some time before I can figure out what goes where, what went where and which end is up on the home front where chaos reigns..
Ah but some things never seem to change.
Like how the Star milks stories like the Schlitterbahn water park’s Verruckt.
Seriously, I could have written most of the headlines a year in advance.
The latest: Stop the presses they’re finally going to tear the ride down.
Somewhat obviously they’ve been planning / waiting to tear the thing down for over a year while the various legal teams sorted out the nuances of the accident. But is the long awaited announcement really a news scoop?
How about conjuring up some equally sexy new news about something the full time reporting staff has freshly uncovered that nobody knows about?
Those sort of stories are very much out there, and while one can make excuses about staff cutbacks, what’s left of the Star’s reporting squad still dwarfs that of local TV news stations and The Pitch at its all-time peak.
But there’s something slow and frankly lazy about print news reporting.
Not sure exactly what it is, but even in the heady days when the newsroom was teaming with talent, there were only a half dozen or so reporters and columnists who got down in a three point stance every day – every week – and tore into their jobs as news gatherers.
To this day I can look back and tell you who many of them were; Joyce Smith and Dan Margolies in Business, Jason Whitlock in Sports, Yael Abouhalkah in editorial and moi. Jeff Spivak and Lynn Horsley could be tenacious and a handful of other writers had their moments and certainly their skillsets, but in the words of former Star editor and publisher Art Brisbane, there were way too many “low burning fires.”
New reporters like former KC Business Journal and Pitch firebrand Steve Vockrodt have been doing some quality work and with luck the stodgy nature of the Star’s news culture won’t slow them down too much.
Because in point of fact, there are eight million stories in the naked cowtown…if somebody gets off their you-know-whats and goes after them.
In the meantime, I’m going to go out on a limb and predict that we’ll see at least six more Verruckt headlines between now and Christmas.
thought the child’s family settled according to sources.
horrible accident. But there has been news as the fool who created this stupid
ride was charged.
Look at the photo. Did anyone think that fishnet would hold anyone in from
falling out of the ride. I did it…and noticed the netting was really weak and the
stabilizing curved bars seemedto bemade of aluminum foil.
Pray for the family that lost a child. But it should be taken down forever.
OMG…to think that we almost lost Boom Boom to the Verruckt!
And might never have found out who he really is, outside of some aging grump meister
The Star needs to focus on the WYCO/UG reckless enablement of Schlitterbahn.
At least there would be an element of investigative reporting, rather than breathless “this just in” stories such as, “They’re finally going to tear it down.”
Try originating something beyond the obvious.
Like who in KCK beyond the Schlitter people had a hand infant tracking this thing and thinking it was the greatest genius stroke since sliced bread.
Many government employed people in the state of Kansas signed off along with some engineers to this thing being built while many more in a position to have shut it down over safety concerns all stood back watching it in operation and not once did anyone speak up against it. If you want to charge the owner then you have to as well charge all those whose names appear on documents that approved all phases of it being allowed to be built to final approval upon final inspection to start operating. This monster was created and allowed to be created by many. So everyone should be taking a place in line to share the end results if any.
But sadly deaths happen at amusements parks everywhere every year. And as we all have seen even a death at Worlds of Fun didn’t cause that ride to be shut down and removed. Nobody faced any criminal charges as a result of that death. If this child who lost his life had been the son of a poor family from BFE in the middle of Kansas I be willing to bet the slide would be in operation today.
I was wondering if anybody would refer back to the World’s of Fun disaster…
To add to your point, was Chiefs owner Lamar hunt still the owner of WOF when that went down?
Here’s an article where the Kansas Governor and terrible ride designer almost fell off the deadly tower:
http://grantland.com/features/the-wet-stuff-verruckt-waterslide-schlitterbahn/