Long time, no see…
After a couple weeks off, returning to the task at hand brings to mind the state of local print journalism. What’s left of it, anyway. Because it’s impossible to escape the fact that pretty much across the board the Kansas City Star, Pitch and Lawrence Journal World are hanging on by mere threads.
Let’s start with the Pitch…
By all rights the Pitch is the journalistic equivalent of a dead man walking.
The local news weekly has never really been profitable according to sources over the years. Not even in its hey day in the late ’90s / early 2000s when it did 60, 70, 80, 100 page issues or more…as a weekly.
These days, as a weakly – as in a monthly – it’s lucky to choke out 32 or 36 pages with gosh knows how many (or few) paid ads. Both of its former parent publishing company owners are now pushing up daisies.
Unfortunately for the current local owners – who continue to choke it out despite impossible market conditions – not only is there no money to be made, the future looks even bleaker.
Today’s Pitch is basically a one-man-operation with a smattering of freelancers keeping it afloat by writing entertainment reviews, more than likely for the joie de vivre (free meals and tickets to the events they review).
Other than being able to look backwards to stories from its glory days when the alt weekly laid the pipe to me and whomever else, there’s precious little in the way of new news to be found.
Too bad.
Then again, unlike legacy alt weeklies like The Village Voice and Boston Phoenix – wildly successful pubs that are dead and gone – almost by dumb luck, the Pitch is alive and kicking, churning out red ink.
Which brings us to the Lawrence Journal World...
Here we have the century-old, proud publication of the Dolph Simons family – a daily newspaper that was fire-saled off two years back and is so poorly written and put together that I’m on the verge of canceling my subscription. Which goes against my basic instincts of wanting to help keep its flame ignited for the good of mankind (and KU).
Because when the Journal World goes for its well-deserved dirt nap, the populace of Lawrence, Kansas is gonna go Rip Van Winkle. It won’t be pretty, and nobody there is gonna have much of a clue as to what’s going on. Short of driving by homemade signs that there’s some sort of meeting or construction project, local news will be left to whatever bloggers pick up the pieces.
Thebottom line: the news equivalent of the Stone Age is perilously close to descending on Lawrence.
What won’t be much missed are the regurgitated editorials from other area newspapers like the Star and the bland, syndicated Trump bashings.
That said, the all-important stuff – stories worshiping KU basketball – will soldier on elsewhere…so no harm, no foul.
But local news wise, it’s the fast approaching end of an era.
Which brings us to the Star – KC’s newspaper of record – the former, local 800 pound gorilla.
This is a particularly sad story…
Not just because of my 16 glorious years there behind the mast – but rather because for many locals, for generations it’s been far and away the one and only source of halfway legitimate local news coverage.
For years the Star has been a left leaning rag – editorially speaking – but nowhere near the levels it is now. Like CNN and any number of other formerly straight-down-the-line news organizations, the liberal inmates here are now running the asylum (as a former Star editor said recently). The net result being, all bets are pretty much off where honest, fair-and-balanced journalism is concerned.
That’s too bad, because the economic vicissitudes of print publishing are enough to all but ensure the Star’s impending doom, Factor in the now out-of-touch, politicized reporting and it’s a recipe for disaster.
Pissing off half the readership isn’t risky – it’s foolhardy. Yet nobody at the helm seems to have a clue, to realize that it’s not still 1990 – a time when newspapers operated as mini monopolies, raking in the dough. Yet even then, they played things far closer to straight down the middle.
That was before amateurish, catty editorials like the one about Kansas Republican Kris Kobach.
“Do you ever get the feeling, Kris Kobach, that someone in the White House wants you not just kneecapped but bleeding on the side of a road no one ever drives on?”
Seriously?
That’s supposed to pass as halfway legit, edgy editorial opinion about a dude that – for all his perceived flaws – was the attorney general of Kansas?
Or the one today where – after the news side’s fawning over the annual Big Slick charity schmooze with KC exports, actors Paul Rudd, Jason Sudekis, Eric Stonestreet and Rob Riggle, one of the editorial writers needlessly doused the event in cold water under the headline: “Big Slick brings out stars for a good cause. Why does it feel like everybody’s white?”
Everybody?
The only thing missing was the word “males” – as in white males.
But wait, what about Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes and singer Selena Gomez? Do they not pass as persons of color?
Are Rudd, Sudeikis, Stonestreet and Riggle racist because there weren’t more black KC actors of note to include? Should they have invited Tyreek Hill?
These days the Star is an over-the-top, self-appointed arbiter of political correctness. No matter what the cause and good intentions, is not having an exact, numerical representation of the minority population a faux pas in need of a scolding?
Yet, there they go, day in and day out – casting aspersions on anybody who’s politics they disagree with – while the circulation continues to shrivel.
So yeah, the beat goes on and that’s pretty much the state of KC’s big three news media.
Changing times…
Here’s a story you won’t find in the KC Star… coming sooner than later to a midwest city near you (break glass/throw fit only in emergency, which is to say after the NFL has had its say/burst the bubble/’taken the Hill’ as twere.)
Sanction – when you aren’t convinced by the cast (to include any suspects, the Chiefs or ‘see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil’ lot fandom), all is well and it was just a big misunderstanding. From Sports Illustrated, and their legal analyst Michael McCann, an Attorney and Associate Dean of UNH Franklin Pierce School of Law:
NFL INVESTIGATION COULD IMPACT LAW ENFORCEMENT’S CASE
https://www.si.com/nfl/2019/06/07/tyreek-hill-child-abuse-investigation-roger-goodell
“Hill is contractually obligated to cooperate with NFL investigators. A failure to do so, under NFL policy, is itself grounds for a suspension. Further, Hill can’t invoke his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.”
– upshot: come clean or get taken to the cleaners, which may happen regardless…
“That constitutional right protects U.S. citizens from self-incrimination while testifying. It has nothing to do with a private employer, applying a workplace conduct policy, asking an employee about what took place. Hill’s rights with respect to NFL investigators are determined by the CBA and his employment contract.”
– as the NFL world turns, the plot thickens (necktie tightens?)
“Investigators will also insist that Hill retell everything that occurred on the date of the son’s injuries (March 14). Law enforcement and the Kansas DCF could potentially seek subpoenas for any evidence obtained by NFL investigators.”
– Ruh-roh…
😎
Yesterday’s editorial could have been worse. It could have hidden behind the Editorial Board moniker. I’m pretty suspicious of The Star. Could the EB be trying to get people reading by being totally ridiculous? Is that how they want to attract readers? If so, they are following the National Enquirer’s methods. If not, they are as bad as you say, and not worth our time.
Spot on.
I DO miss local news reporting. National news is available in SO many places today, due to technology’s new 24-hour news cycle. Not so much with local news reporting.
As a 63-yr-old WHITE MALE (see…..I SAID IT……….it’s really not that hard!) I am interested in honest reporting of events based on FACTS rather than reporting designed before it even occurs to push emotional or social media buttons. Believe it or not, most people have minds far more open than some seem to think. We do not subscribe to the hivemind, whether the buzzing comes from the left or the right. We are open (not just open, but IN DESPERATE NEED) to honest, open conversation about the issues of the day but instead find ourselves in a situation where there is no discussion or debate, just the odious option of choosing one hivemind over the other.
When I was young and learning to form opinions, friendships, and even admiration for people I may not agree with but still respected, it was all about the exchange of ideas with the chance that honest discourse might actually change one’s mind about a subject or topic. Now it is no more than two groups of opposing ideologies screaming mindlessly at each other from their echo chambers across an open room.
It is this focus on emotional, nonthinking, knee-jerk reaction (amplified heavily by the cowardly anonymity of social media) that is bringing this proud country to its knees………..not the actual ideas or dogmas being spread by either side. BOTH sides of our political spectrum are dead right in some ways and utterly wrong in others.
There was a time when if you talked to somebody, and you agreed on 8 or 9 things out of 10, you would smile and think that the two of you had much in common. Not any longer. In today’s brave new world, you MUST agree unconditionally on every issue or topic or the hivemind will consign you to ‘one of them’. It is not only sad but frightening when looking at the long-term prospects for our society and nation.