Memo to Sam Mellinger: don’t quit your day job, dogg…
Writing about sports minutiae’s one thing – and something Sam does a pretty decent job of – but sorting out real life news issues over chicken wings and beer isn’t exactly a recipe for solving real world woes.
Yet here comes Sam on the front page of Thursday’s Star – bright eyed and full of boyish naiveté – ready, willing but unable to solve a controversy surrounding KC’s proposed streetcar route.
How could he?
All Mellinger really did was take a couple of cheap shots at outspoken Westport businessman Bill Nigro and get a single bar owner and a bureaucrat to sit down and politely agree to disagree on whether the streetcar should go down a blighted Main in Midtown or a more evolved Broadway past Westport and closer to the Country Club Plaza.
Look, there are lots of things one can tweet their way into but having a kumbaya moment may have made Mellinger feel good but the controversy is still alive and kicking.
A little background:
Westporters in KC’s entertainment district feel they’ve earned a streetcar stop – especially since while most of ’em aren’t being allowed to vote on the issue (which is bogus and something Sam the Man didn’t even touch on), yet they’re the ones who are going to be tapped for an involuntary, giant chunk of change to pay for it.
Nigro’s take that Mellinger didn’t bother calling to get:
“I’ll shut up when they bring the streetcar down Broadway.”
That’s a simplification.
But so is Mellinger taking a couple of out-of-context Nigro quotes from another Star reporter’s story and using them to garnish a column about “honest, civil discourse” by confessing that Nigro’s quote, “aggravated my bones.”
Seriously, does it get any wimpier than that?
Last time I recall Mellinger’s bones being aggravated, he was pissed at Chiefs owner Clark Hunt for not coming down in support of NFL players kneeling during the national anthem.
Now a little journalistic advice from the cheap seats for Sam.
If you’re going to venture into the world of actual news gathering, try doing a bit of your own reporting. As in talking to the people you’re laying the pipe to.
What Sam would have learned had he bothered to call Nigro:
“There was a whole other conversation I had with the Star reporter last week about the security aspects of having to walk six blocks from the streetcar stop at 39th and Main to Westport that he didn’t include in his story,” Nigro says.
That’s because newbie Star writer Bill Turque opted to spice his story about the Westport – Main controversy by tacking on a Nigro quote at the end posing the question, “What women are going to walk four blocks at night in any urban core in the country?”
Paternalistic, Mellinger dissed.
But hold it right there.
“I wouldn’t even want to walk it,” Nigro also told Turque.
By leaving that and a bunch more of Nigro’s views on the topic out was misleading, unfair and cast him to some as being sexist.
For example,”Somebody got killed a couple months ago on 39th Street,” Nigro had told Turque. “And if you ask the police department, they’ll tell you about a lot of issues down in that area that have gone on at night. I wouldn’t walk it without going pretty damn quick. And who’s going to want to walk that in the rain or snow or other bad stuff?”
Turque left out several other of Nigro’s points.
“In the flyers that the city passed out two years ago for the streetcar there was a map that showed how far out the streetcar route would benefit people in the surrounding areas,” Nigro says. “And beyond three blocks there was no benefit.
“No offense, but Main Street doesn’t hold a candle to what Broadway offers. And the streetcar people said, ‘We want to build up Main. It needs development and the street cars are gonna make that happen.’ But Broadway and the Plaza are already well developed, paying tons of taxes and could use some help, too.”
Mellinger’s rationale for bypassing Westport and the Plaza:
“There’s also a bigger game at play here,” he writes. “The streetcar has been criticized as a tourist’s toy or a joyride for people on the way to or from bars. Running it through Westport would add to that criticism…”
Jesus Sam, get a clue.
Wanna know how one of the most successful new streetcar systems in the country chose its route? From the Main gate of the University of Arizona in Tucson through that city’s most established entertainment district, 4th Avenue and on to and through the city’s newest dining, shopping and entertainment district in Tucson’s revitalized downtown.
Oh yeah, give Nigro a call some other time you’re not doing anything because the Chiefs are off and the Royals are sucking and hear him out before you nail him to the cross.
Just saying…
Bill Nigro has helped save Westport. Some people need to thank him.
I like the picture of the Progressive, “Socialist Silo” where Sam does his best work.
Those poor folks in Westport, trying to make a living and make ends meet, while Law Enforcement is crippled by the insane rules of the Politically Correct Weltanschauung we all live in, while the 4th Estate in the laughable presence of The Kansas City Star, doctors and distorts evidence, twists narratives and suppresses relative context, all, while atavistic, violent black males, with obvious criminal intent can’t be stopped and frisked.
Sam is way out over his skis when he dabbles in anything other than subjects which relate to quick twitch fibers.
If he, or, any ‘journalist’ at the K.C. Star ever grows the balls to address the real problems in Westport other than unctuous rationalizations for criminal behaviour and the denial of moral agency to the “Protected Class” who commit the crimes that threaten Westport, I’ll eat my MAGA Hat.
Shut the fuck up and get back to figuring out why Alex Gordon hits like a chick.
It would have been nice if Sam Mellinger gave me a courtesy call before he bagged on me. I sent him an email to call me and my bet is that he won’t call! Sam could have talked to fellow reporter, Bill Turque, and found out I’m actually working with the KCATA to develope a plan to build tourism on weekends that will bring MORE ridership to the street cars. KCMO sent us a brochure 2 years ago that showed no benefit beyond 3 blocks. Now they gerymandered around Westport and the Plaza to capture their tax money which will represent over 40% of the expansion cost. The City wants Westport to build Main Street. It’s disturbing that KC doesn’t want it to come by KC’s oldest Neighborhood. Security is a BIG part of the equation, not just from 39th and Main to Westport, but city wide. I’m with Bill George, I won’t give any more political donations until we address some of KC’s real issues. Oh, and Sam, let’s have a friendly conversation. Bill Nigro
Technically, as an opinion columnist, Mellinger didn’t absolutely have to call Nigro…
That said, I too was a columnist and when I was doing actual reporting as I most often did, I had to call for comments. And Mellinger was doing reporting in this column so he really should have taken five minutes out and covered his you-know-what.
The flip side of which is that in his sports writing he mostly doesn’t have to and covering news here he was a fish out of water.
The bottom line though is while Mellinger was so obviously delighted at how civility between opposing groups is such a wonderful thing, he needlesslystepped in it by not doing his homework, making a call and finding out that Nigro too can be civil.
In fact, he was.
Unfortunately Nigro’s quite civil conversation with Turque resulted in his getting thrown under the bus viaan out-of-context quote, which Sam compounded by bogusly trashing Nigro for a crime he really did not commit.
Make no mistake, Nigro is more than adept at inserting his foot in his mouth at times. That said, he doesn’t need any help from new-to-the-area reporters looking to try and make a name for themselves.
Have you heard Mellinger on 810. Put you to sleep faster than propophyl.
A streetcar named desire? Sorry, Kerouac couldn’t resist. 😎 To wit, following in the footsteps Whitlock & Posnanski, perhaps Mellinger is the journalistic progeny… my opine, he can’t carry either’s shoes.
Mellinger is more unconscious than with conscience his ‘stylings’. As sports columnist, he makes a wonderful homer in terms of his ‘rah rah rah’ spirit. In this, he is not alone – I just prefer my announcers broadcast & print to be impartial in lieu awe struck.
His ‘how great Chiefs QB Mahomes art’ narrative adoration, based on a single game, the stuff of PR mouthpiece. A game Mahomes was outplayed statistically nod passer rating (by the third string Denver QB), and wherein a maligned KC defense for once managed thwart the other team’s offense when it had to. Shading ‘how KC got there’ for the win is the stuff of agent speak, sleight of hand a negotiation table via column inches the KC Star.
If I haven’t used the word ‘agenda’ yet, let me fix that oversight here and now. Trouble is, Mellinger’s about half a century late pushing Chiefs red Kool-Aid; that line forms to the right.
The city has already admitted that beyond three blocks there is no benefit for businesses. So why are Westport and the Plaza being squeezed to cough up 40% of the expansion costs? As a business owner and landlord targeted by the city to pay for this, Nigro has every right to speak his mind. I’d be a little ticked off, too. Especially, since the city knows from the brochure it passed out that he will get no benefit from a streetcar going down Main! Nigro should ask, “What’s in it for me?”
As a female, I was not offended by Nigro’s comment of “What woman would walk four blocks in any urban core?” Nigro, who happens to have 3 20-something aged daughters might have been thinking of them, Sam, when you suggested he is paternalistic? Rightly so! But I don’t see it as sexist. I wouldn’t make that trek with my friends unless I was wearing my running shoes, had body guards dressed as Secret Service agents and it was 70 degrees, let alone by myself, in heels, during a thunderstorm.
Sam, it aggravates me that you forgot to do a bit of research before expressing a rather judgmental opinion. And hmmmm who picked up the tab for your wings?
Just got off the phone with Nigro and mellinger did indeed man up and return his call, but…
Here’s Nigro’s take:
“Mellinger was nice and I was very polite, but halfway into the conversation when I was explaining to him what I thought and why misusing my quotes like that was unfair, he said I was being condescending to him
“And I said, ‘Wait a minute. You bashed me on the front page of the Star without even bothering to talk to me and I’m being condescending? I don’t get it.
“And he said, ‘I wasn’t bashing you. I just thought you sounded whiny, I didn’t bag on you.'”
TIME OUT: Here is what Mellinger wrote about Nigro that “wasn’t” bashing:
“Let’s back up just a little bit, to a story by The Star’s Bill Turque centered around Westport landlord Bill Nigro’s concern that the KC streetcar’s proposed extension route is to far from the bar-and-restaurant district to justify and cost and additional taxes.
“The message that came through aggravated my bones, Nigro essentially whining that civic progress wasn’t coming close enough to his front door, topped with the (at best) paternalistic stance that women won’t walk four blocks at night “in any urban core.
“Nigro is Westport’s non-spokesman, with a remarkable ability to say the wrong thing , and privately many who work and own businesses there wish he’d stop talking.”
OK, BACK TO MELLINGER NOT BASHING NIGRO:
How out of touch can somebody be not to recognize the above as a major dissing?
But I can tell you thing, right or wrong, Star staffers have a strong tendency to stick together and they honestly don’t get that or why readers don’t see things pretty much exactly through their eyes. I was there 16 years; trust me on this one.
And now the rest of the story…
It didn’t fully make sense why a full-time jock sniffer would light out on an unrelated news story with no explanation. Yet that’s exactly what Mellinger did sans any attempt at full disclosure…UNTIL NOW
“He did tell me that he lives about a mile off the streetcar route,” Nigro says. “Which makes for a pretty good walk. My guess is he’ll walk it when the weather’s perfect and drive there and take the streetcar when it’s not.”
“I did get him to admit that he’s not a news writer. Which is probably why he didn’t call me for a comment. He didn’t have a specific answer for not calling me, just that was going off the comments he read. And based on my edited comments in the paper I’m a whiner and I have a big mouth.
“I also asked him to name a stop on Main Street he’d want to get off at. And he said, Union Station, but that’s already a stop. So I asked him from Union Station to the Plaza to name one and he couldn’t do it.”
And there you have it, folks. Reason #123,567,899 why no one trusts the mainstream media, whether in print or on tv, whether it be local or national. You’ve got a third rate columnist passing off his opinions as fact.
3rd rate columnist = Mellinger. Just to be clear.
Ouch, that’s a little harsh, Wildman…
Tell me who you past/present local first rate columnists are or were.
Two of the more telling things about Nigro’s followup with Sam were:
First, that confronted with the mere explanation that he’d been taken out of context by the other Star reporter and saying he was surprised Mellinger bagged on him without even calling to get his side of the story first hand, Sam told Nigro he was being condescending.
Secondly, because Nigro took offense at being bashed on the front page of the newspaper of record, he needed to grow a pair.
I don’t think calling Mellinger a 3rd rate columnist is harsh at all.
The Star used to have two good sports columnists in it’s paper. Now, it has none.
Say what you will about JoPo. Personally I thought he was a feature writer who wrote long columns with little to no substance. He never took a stand or held any local teams feet to the fire. He was Mitch Albom light. But the guy was at least very respected locally and nationally. At least until the Joe Paterno book fiasco.
And sure, Whitlock was lazy and half assed it more times then not. Remember one of his last columns where he talked about Tiger Woods when Tom Watson was on top of the British Open leaderboard going into the final day?
But when he tried Whitlock got the town talking. I don’t remember a single column of Mellinger’s that was water cooler material.
To me, Mellinger = Jonathan Rand.
Holy smokes, Word…
Hard to argue with you on Whitlock and Posnanski. And unfortunately, Jonathan Rand.
That said, Mellinger has done far better than Rand, me thinks.
What about – here’s a blast from the past – Gib Twyman!
He went down ugly, but as I recall, he had his moments. Kind of the successor to Joe McGuff. Stomper might have something to add here.
Sam lives in Kansas, so it would be closer for him if the streetcar were on Broadway.
A mile away, huh?
Even if that’s true, care to speculate on what possessed him to intercede in this deal?
Care to defend him on why he didn’t make an attempt to get a comment from Nigro or address Turgue leaving out Nigro’s quote about even he wouldn’t want to walk it. A quote that would have diluted greatly depicting Nigro as sexist?
Sports writers should stay in their lane. The only local exception I can recall is Joe McGuff, the only non-local one is probably Hunter S. Thompson.
[RIP, Tom Wolfe]