Hearne: Kansas City Star Begs Arts Groups to Pay for Play

They say,  beggars can’t be choosers…

And once upon a time, things like the separation of church and state used to matter.

A similar principle used to exist in the world of serious news journalism. At the Kansas City Star of old there was an imaginary – and yet in many ways, very real – wall between the news and the advertising sides of the biz.

Reporters on the second and third floors of the building cringed at the thought of interacting with unwashed ad folks on the first floor. The very thought of mixing (or diluting) the core values of independent thought and news reporting with the pay-for-play staffers was abhorrent.

Sure, the department heads and editors had lines of communication with the sales schlubs, but writers were kept at arms length and with the odd exception. Outside of the likes of KU, Hallmark Cards and civic leaders like former UMB head honcho R. Crosby Kemper Jr.  people  respected the journalistic independence accorded to the news side of the biz.

No mas…

Those imaginary walls melted away over the past 10 years as ad revenues plummeted. Now they’ve all but disappeared. These days, everything seems to have a price tag on it – so-called ethics be damned.

And just when it seemed the ship of state could sink no lower…

“They’re asking local arts organizations to donate to the Star so they can afford to hire an arts writer,” says Theater League honcho Mark Edelman. “I mean, these  (critics)are the people we used to live in fear of.”

Because a bad review in the Star could render a given musical, play or symphony performance dead-on-arrival, Edelman says.

Now the newspaper wants local arts organizations to pay-to-play, so to speak.

“It’s true,” confirms another arts insider. “They wanted (us) to pay for the writer – $66,000 – and the organizations all said, ‘Are you crazy?’ ”

The obvious ethical dilemma being the newspaper is trying to get the subjects being “reported” on pay for their coverage, for better or for worse, apparently.

“What?” says Westport businessman Bill Nigro. “That’s fucked up on so many levels. Do they get to pick the guy out? Pretty ballsy of the Star. First of all they’re asking them to pay for someone to write about them – to pay to let the Star give them bad reviews.”

The flip side of that coin…

“The only thing that delights me about it is knowing that the Star is in such bad shape that they have to do these kind of deals,” Nigro says. “And that makes me smile. The day they go out of business, I’m going to call (editor) Mike Fannin and give him a piece of m y mind.”