Just when you thought things couldn’t get any worse…
Hey, when you go from more than 2,000 employees to fewer than 200, you know times are tough. And frankly, when you’re Kansas City’s 800 pound media gorilla, there’s nowhere to hide.
Make no mistake, these past 10 years have been butt ugly for the Kansas City Star.
It’s hard to imagine things being any worse.
Whatever could go wrong did go wrong.
Take high profile departures such as myself, Jason Whitlock, Brian McTavish, Kevin Collison and Karen Dillon. The list is endless. And while the visual quality of the printed product improved immensely via the new $250 million press pavilion, in today’s marketplace it serves as more as a reminder of how dismal things have become more than the proud status symbol it once was.
Remember when mighty Newsweek magazine was sold for a single buck?
The bigger they are the harder they fall in the print publishing game.
And incredibly, the folks who steered the ship of state into the ditch are still large and in charge.
Like editor Mike Fannin, a dude who instead of being demoted or let go as he might have by former Star owner Knight Ridder for a pair of clandestine DUIs and an affair with a married subordinate, was still Johnny-on-the-spot Sunday begging locals to keep sending in their money.
Talk about desperation…
Fannin prefaced his plea with a bit of chest thumping, but there’s no getting around the fact that the newspaper – in addition to being filled with day and three old news – pushy opinions by folks who aren’t even from around here and national news stories widely available for free in any number of other media, the bottom line is that less is not more.
Less is less and a whole lot less is worse.
“Kansas City, we need each other. So let’s keep the conversation going,” read yesterday’s headline.
“As the editor of Kansas City’s largest media company, I want you to know what we’re doing at The Star and why,” Fannin began. “And I want to better understand what you want from us.”
How hard is it to “get” that readers want more original local and regional content, a fair (and balanced) political perspective that respects not just people with liberal leanings, and fewer watered down national news stories.
The sort of news and content that will attract advertisers other than erectile dysfunction clinics, purveyors of hearing aids, pet classifieds and oldster obits.
If the only advertisers who make big bucks marketing decisions based on readership and demographics are limited to the above categories, what’s that say about the future of the newspaper?
Nobody in the real world gives a darn about some song-and-dance study by Arizona State. They don’t care that a bunch of left-leaning, underpaid writers think their jobs are a “civic duty.”
“Journalism costs money, and your subscription matters,” Fannin continued. “Your readership matters. If it’s important to you for us to continue…please go to Kansas City.com/subscribe and support that mission.”
Earth to Mike Fannin:
Locals aren’t interested in a failed business dude preaching and panhandling for subscriptions.
The bottom line being that if the end product was there, Fannin wouldn’t have to beg; they’d already be subscribers.
All the Star has to do is honestly and fairly report the news instead of being a liberal blog.
“Journalism costs money, and your subscription matters,” Fannin continued. “Your readership matters. If it’s important to you for us to continue…”
– change Journalism to ‘faith’, subscription to ‘tithe’, readership to ‘attendance’ and if it’s important to you to ‘sacrifice’… the parallels are not lost; the KC Star loves you and wants to have a personal relationship with you.
“please go to Kansas City.com/subscribe and support that mission.”
– PLEEEEEEA$E! in the name of the publisher, the editor and wholly rest (reporters, photographers, cartoonists, graphic designers & digital et al’s, a (buddy can you spare a dime – or at least $129.99 a year for home delivery) men.
“Earth to Mike Fannin: Locals aren’t interested in a failed business dude preaching and panhandling for subscriptions.”
– which reminds me: saw a church with a large ‘ATM inside’ sign posted street facing, outside next its front entry door… only thing missing neon flashing lights (and/or the carnival barker with collar at the altar of ‘pay up and be healed’ waiting inside.)
________
“the visual quality of the printed product improved immensely via the new $250 million press pavilion”
– different strokes for different folks, not unlike mine preference film noir to modern, Kerouac still prefers the ‘old school’ newspaper look: from vintage narrative/heading (example the word ‘BULLETIN’ – when was the last time you saw that used large type a printed edition), to quaint advertising (so beautiful, in its simplicity), to those great ‘partial box scores’ sporting section one read the following morning mid-west, re: late starting west coast night time baseball games.
Century 21? Forget it (am trying hard to)/you can have it; I’m going back the Garden, Eve, apple and loincloth-free days… such paradox, G*d **m**t.
😎
If they endorse Kobach in 2018 or Trump in 2020, I’ll subscribe again.
I would too.
Really? Are there tens of thousands of Conservatives just waiting until it goes to the right before they subscribe? No. The newspaper is outdated. It’s audience is dying everyday and it’s not being replaced. There is no need for it. Once the current generation of readers exit stage left, the printed page will go with it. Business must survive and adapt to the times they are in. Newspapers have not. The fact that they lean left and right is utterly irrelevant.
Excellent point, Shawnster…
However the combination of them skewing extremely left, combined with everything else – dated national news, and not enough meaningful local and regional coverage and an overall presentation lacking in edge or style…
They certainly could do a whole lot better, because their deficiencies in print mirror their deficiencies online.
I believe in journalism and would love to subscribe. And I’m a pretty moderate person politically. But the coverage is just so over the top biased, unfair and hateful, I can’t give them a dime. My media dollars instead goes to the Shawnee Mission Post.
You are not alone, but for some of us, it’s really the only game in town so we overlook to whatever extent those shortcomings.
That nobody in the Star hierarchy even gets the point you’re making is crazy.
It’s the invisible (to them) elephant in the room.
So instead of addressing the obvious they’ll plow more money into expensive surveys that tell them stuff like most people respect and trust them…then why are most people turning their backs?
Do you really feel the SM Post isn’t biased? How many blogs have they had that painted anyone on the left in a negative way? Jay Senter has a specific narrative and makes sure to post blogs that support his narrative.
I dunno, it’s not wildly important to me that everybody tow the line of unbiased reporting…
There’s plenty of room for conflicting opinions. Especially with small time blogs and website that don’t particularly wildly matter.
That said, the traditional role of a daily newspaper (with a virtual news monopoly) is to at least pretend to try to be objective (outside of their editorials or columnists).
But these days organizations like CNN and newspapers like the Star have like zero concern for such pretenses.
DPW is correct about the SMP and Mr. Senter will go as far as eliminating any posts he feels threatens his point of views. Then if you really upset him with the truth to often he just will ban you. You can’t run what you call a news site and then eliminate or ban people from posting who try to support or tell the other side on things, The only Freedom of Speech you see on that site is his and not yours if you disagree. And I’m not talking posts like you see on TKC but well posts like you see on here now days. To me the SMP and the Star both share the same mind set in story/news reporting. Instead of telling you the whole story so you can make up your own mind, they tell you the parts of a story they want you to believe is fact. Sadly there isn’t anyone go to place anymore for local news. A person now has to be hooked up to about a dozen or so sites to gather local, national and world news.
Right on Super Dave!
Newspapers are going to have to kill their daily print editions. They’re the most visible example of how bad things are in the industry. For those who still need their paper, change to a once or twice-weekly compendium of what they’re covering, free of the filler that plagues the daily editions. Next, they have to invest where they can do the most good – local news and sports. There has to be more investigative journalism. That means uncovering issues and digging until they get answers. Readers grow weary of hearing that the subject of an investigation “did not immediately return our calls.” If the story is worth reporting, bang on the door until they come out, or ambush them in the street. That’s the stuff that made 60 Minutes the icon it was for years.
People won’t pay for a rehash of what they can find online. They will, I believe, pay for fresh takes and good old fashioned in-the-trenches journalism at a local level.
Art Brisbane speculated several years back that they might go to a three days a week tabloid – maybe 20,000 copies for the hardcore print types – then put their money on the Sunday edition where the big revenue was at the time.
Today? Hard to say, but Sunday will never be the same – or so it seems.
The part you maybe are missing is that there’s no real money in the online game. Not if they want to keep anything approaching a large enough staff to make the kind of reporting you want come true.
And frankly even 200 staffers (down from more than 2,000) is more than enough if everybody works hard and smart.
Unfortunately, print journalists today – even the younger ones that worked at The Pitch have no concept of the kind of effort and passion it takes to make something like what you want to see come true. At this point in time, the people that are drawn to this field are with few exceptions, not the go-getter types.
I don’t think it matters what the Star does anymore. People have moved on, they find whatever they want from a myriad of resources: Blogs, Podcasts, Youtube, more specialized websites that cater to their interests, smartphone alerts, and on and on.
KC Star had it’s day in the sun and now it’s over, plain and simple.
I read the Star’s sports page for many, many years..probably from 1976-2013..and I’ll say they had some great writers on their staff..Posnanski, Whitlock, McGuff, Kerkhoff, McCullough, Babb. Heck, Manley would reply to everyone’s comments on his UFR page but they kept on piling and piling his workload until he finally snapped.
Nowadays, there’s no reason to read Star Sports, it simply lost all it’s talent, thus it’s luster. The website itself was great from around 1996-2012/13. Now it’s just a piece of junk.
RIP KC Star & Times
Hey Mike Fannin. Hear the thunder?
“The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette plans to stop publishing print newspapers two days a week in late August, as part of a plan to transition the nearly 232-year-old daily newspaper from a print to a digital news operation, employees learned Wednesday.”
This, from –
https://triblive.com/local/allegheny/13809455-74/pittsburgh-post-gazette-to-stop-publishing-in-print-two-days-a-week
The party is way, way over.
““Journalism costs money, and your subscription matters,” Fannin continued. “Your readership matters. If it’s important to you for us to continue…please go to Kansas City.com/subscribe and support that mission.””
Good Lord. That is worse than websites throwing up a pop up window begging me to whitelist their page in the name of honorable journalism.
It is 2018 and they still haven’t figured it out.
Perfect timing on this pitch by Fannin, too…
Right when the city is thinking up ways to outlaw panhandling!