KC Confidential

A funny thing happened Sunday as I waited to turn left onto 119th Street from Antioch…

A motorcade of maybe 100 bikers – proceeding west two by two and widely spaced – rambled slowly through the intersection as one of the biker dudes positioned himself so as to halt other traffic from entering the intersection from the north and south.

And when the light turned green for those cars to proceed, confused motorists bumbled awkwardly into the intersection only to be halted by the bikers as their procession glided on, ignoring the red light and continuing merrily westward.

WTF? Continue reading →

Sooner or later, it happens to just about everybody, right?

You find yourself working alongside – or worse yet – under the thumb of a co-worker who, for lack of a better term, is kind of a jerk – not a very nice person.

In the wake of last year’s Hunger Games standoff at the Kansas City Star between reporters Dawn Bormann and Karen Dillon, and Dillon’s subsequent layoff this week, comes the suggestion that such a person may have been involved in the latter’s demise.

Remember this quote earlier in the week about senior assistant managing editor Greg Farmer?

“I think Farmer has his chosen few,” one Star newsroom staffer told me. “And the people who don’t ‘yessir’ him enough are at risk.”

After further discussion… Continue reading →

Jim Barcus

It’s not like newspapers are the only businesses that have been suffering in recent years…

That said, while former Kansas City Star publisher Mark Zieman used to get away with blaming the ocean of laid off newsies heading for the exit door every three months on the economy, the real reason for the blood letting is now far more apparent; newspapers are hemorrhaging print revenues (and profits) far faster than they can be replaced online.

It’s nothing new – and it’s obvious to KCC readers certainly – but placing the blame on the economy is no longer a viable excuse.

To that end, the Star is laying off more staffers this week. Continue reading →

The $64 million question: Why would the Kansas City Star ax an award winning journalist?

That’s certainly a puzzle that’s on more than a few minds in the wake the the local newspaper dropping the hammer yesterday on investigative reporter Karen Dillon.

As in, the Karen Dillon.

The Karen Dillon who famously brought down the career of peep show perve Pee Wee Herman in 1991. Continue reading →

Karen Dillon

It wasn’t Dave Helling, nor Louis Diuguid…

And it certainly wasn’t FYI section columnist Jenee´Osterheldt. Nope, the only known layoffs victim Monday at the Kansas City Star was Hunger Games survivor Karen Dillon.

Talk about irony.

When last we checked in on Dillon last December, she found herself infamously in the crosshairs during the last round of layoffs at the newspaper.  There she was locked in a struggle with fellow reporter Dawn Bormann in a battle for survival in which the two reporters were left to decide amongst themselves which would be laid off and which would stay.

Dillon having seniority at the Star was given the option of staying on. Continue reading →

It takes a big man to admit he made a mistake…

And that’s exactly what Stanford & Sons main man / football prognosticator Craig Glazer is here to do.

“I was wrong, Missouri is a very good football team,” Glazer says. “They’re beating SEC teams; they’re beating teams on the road and they’re beating them handily. All of a sudden, Missouri is a glamor team and nobody nationally knows anything about them.”

Kinda like the Kansas City Chiefs. Continue reading →

The imaginary sirens have sounded and news roomers at the Kansas City Star are hunkering down…

That in the expectation that another round of layoffs is about to unfold, sources say.

“We’re hearing it everywhere,” says one staffer who asked not to be named. “There have been meetings between editors and human resources and everyone is expecting the worst.”

That’s the bad news. Continue reading →