There are folks who still think I’m a sour grapes guy…
Think again, because my critiques of the Kansas City Star and Pitch have nothing to do with a sense of longing because I’m no longer writing for either.
It’s true, I basically have been screwed by both, but it really doesn’t matter. Even former Pitch owner Hal Brody complimented me for treating him fairly in my columns.
Moving back to Arizona a year ago – where I graduated high school and attended college – means I no longer have to put up with the drumbeat of the Star’s heavy handed editorials. Talk about a relief, it’s like escaping the gravitational pull of an annoying neighbor or ex.
That said, there’s no escaping the mainstream thought police!
Tucson’s Arizona Daily Star is every bit as biased but happily, far less obnoxious.
It comes out seven days a week (not six) in four sections. And keeps me up to date on mundane stuff like local news, crime and weather – and arrives without fail every day by 7 am (eat your hearts out Cowtowners).
It’s also loaded with letters from brainwashed locals who love to bash Arizona senator Kyrsten Sinema for having sensible deliberations on topics like not destroying the filibuster.
But back to KC…
You guys are still stuck with Mike “Three Time Loser” Fannin – who never would have been appointed Star editor had publisher Art Brisbane not foolishly opted to move his family to California to take over the Knight Ridder newspaper chain that unbeknownst to him (or anybody else) was soon to be sold.
The rest is history, but it’s hard to imagine that history continuing much longer.
Jimmy C Still Cranky After All These Years
I remember meeting Fannin for lunch a couple years after I left, when he told me he was counting the days until he could finish laying off remaining oldsters like reporter-turned-blogger Jim Fitzpatrick, and complete the transition to a new generation of local journalism.
So much for that plan.
The Star is now so progressive/biased that Fannin has almost completely run off readers even slightly to the right of the wildly liberal Fitzpatrick. The newspaper was always left-leaning – yet far more balanced – under Brisbane and publishers Jim Hale and Bob Woodworth.
No mas.
Today’s Star fortunes have fallen so far they can’t even manage to deliver what’s left to aging subscribers paying as much as $400 a year – or more.
Seriously.
Since the first of the year, KCC movie guy Jack Poessiger has tried in vain to get his daily Star delivered. And only after sending a groveling email to Fannin has he started to get one here and there.
“I actually got it for a complete week,” Poessiger says. “Can you believe it?”
Here’s what Jack wrote on Facebook a few days ago:
“With the Star’s unreliable delivery system of late (at least to my place) I must admit that I’m starting to feel bad for the newspaper. Unless I am mistaken the Star seems to have lost its distribution deal for the super market inserts in their Wednesday editions. I began noticing it about a month ago? That’s when I also noticed these inserts appearing in my mailbox instead. What will be next? The obits? No, that won’t happen. There’s too much money involved.”
Poessiger’s post set off a cavalcade of commiserations from area notables.
“They just seem to be having problems in a lot of areas,” wrote Jeff Vaughn. “Their news is always at least one day old and while I’m not the least bit political I find that they seem to have their own slanted reporting in a lot of different areas so they seem to be more interested in shaping opinions instead of reporting news. Other than their puzzles I find them to have no point of difference to any other news source. Certainly many more negatives than positives. In my opinion they used to be one of the top papers in the country and I bragged on them all the time, but not anymore. I had been a home delivery customer for over 40 years, but finally DC’d it a few months ago.”
“I agree,” added Marlene Hestand. “I recently lost my mother, Marilyn Pulver, who knew you from when she worked in the film industry here in Kansas City. The Star charged over $600 for a small 2-column obituary but I felt strongly that Mom deserved to have her obit in the paper.”
“I just paid $120 for my ex-husband’s tiny obit,”wrote former KY102 exec Debbie Van Pelt McEnroe. “Just his name, service date/time and link to the funeral home where the real obituary was published for free.”
“My subscription has expired and haven’t renewed,” wrote former Romanelli Grill main man Joe McCabe. “Curious to see what happens going forward. Refuse to pay $420 for a yearly subscription!”
“My delivery problems began Jan. 1st and have been hit and mostly miss ever since,” said local actor Carol Barta. “When I call the Star to report this, they hang up! Please…someone, start a new dependable publication.”
“One of the main reasons home deliveries are so erratic is because there are so few subscribers remaining that the carriers cannot keep track of which houses to deliver to,” wrote local writer Joe Vaughan. “In the old days, everybody took the paper, and this was no problem. Now each one is so widely separated that a non-subscriber may well be getting a free paper in the confusion.”
How things came to this point:
“I think it started getting bad when they became an opinion paper instead of reporting the news in a neutral and informative manner,” writes Carol Gonzales.
Can I get an “amen” on that one?
How things came to this point: “I think it started getting bad when they became an opinion paper instead of reporting the news in a neutral and informative manner,” writes Carol Gonzales.
What!
How about it started when the internet was created and they, just like almost every other local paper out there, could not figure how to change.
We do not need the KC Star for the same reason we no longer need Blockbuster Video.
Good one, KK…
I dunno, I still think there needs to be some “boots on the ground” to gather local news and information for those of us, who kinda wanna know a bit more of what is going on than what they hear from the neighbors, friends and co-workers.
I highly doubt anyone is learning much if anything from say this site or Tony’s KC, which is largely feeding off mainstream media and weighing in with offbeat takes.
They obviously do not need a printed newspaper in their driveways but they do have to find a way to make enough money to have people out and about reporting what passes for news.
All of that said, when virtually everything that is “reported” is skewed or “flavored” to the extent it is in the Kansas City Star, upwards of half the potential readership is bound to look elsewhere.
And that “elsewhere” includes elsewhere on the Internet!
I agree still the need for news media but the real news not their take on the issue. Running a local city blog myself you have to get the facts out there if at all possible and maybe share some insight on the matter but don’t taint the facts too pump up your story as that leads to distrust and loss of readers.
I agree, SD
$420 a year? That would have been a bargain for me. At one point I received a renewal bill for over $1100 for one year. I discovered that my my wife had actually paid over $800 the year before. I successfully phone haggled them down to $560 for a couple of years. But the haggling, inconsistent delivery, and ever decreasing content finally drove me to stop renewal about 3 or 4 years ago.
This provided a discussion topic among the good old boys with whom I have breakfast monthly. Comparing bills, we discovered that they were all over the board covering hundreds of dollars. It was like getting on a plane and learning that all seats came at a different price, whatever you could haggle. Quitting the Star was an emotional decision. I had picked a paper up in a driveway every day for 60 years. But the worst part was the phone harassment I was subjected to for months. They were relentless, and still call from time to time. I was so miserable that I would not take that paper now if they paid me.
Too, bad, William…
I was about to offer you $1,000 to resubscribe!
Kidding, of course.
Yeah, I faintly recall when Brisbane was still there and they wanted us all to subscribe and gave us some kind of “substantial” discount to do so.
Can’t recall the exact figure but I started advising readers three or four years ago that they would accept like ten bucks a month. I remember Jim Fitzpatrick paying like three times or more than number, along with Bill Nigro and a few other – Jack Poessiger. I told them how to get my number; just say know and let however many days/weeks pass and they would take it.
Nobody actually did…Fitzpatrick finally did as I recall. Nigro finally bailed. Poessiger got it down a bit but nowhere near my number. Now he’s paying less, but getting it delivered as much as almost NEVER.
On top of which, he takes USA Today as well – was from the same carrier – and when the Star went away in January, he no longer got USA Today either.
I probably don’t need to share my thoughts on USA Today – which was decent at one point – but I now pretty much a rag.
Poor Jack!
And poor everybody!!!
Will not venture a guess what it would co$t to receive the Kansas City Star and the late (double entendre) ‘Times’ delivered century 21, to my home – out of state. I paid for that privilege decades ago, aft moving away from the area…that ‘the news’ was not so very by the time it arrived 3-5 days (and sometimes 10+ or not at all) post print date, punishment enough.
Bless you, my son…
Now go and sin no more
Nod an Eagle, ‘we haven’t had that spirit here since, 1969’…