Was a time investigative reporters at the Kansas City Star could phone it in…
The award-winning journalists there were treated like “tribal elders” – men and women who through age and experience were respected and admired for their wisdom and held in high regard, regardless of how seldom they actually published any stories.
Housed in a far corner of the newsroom these reporters gathered daily to reflect on the news of the day, although writing just a small handful of stories each year – most of which were investigative pieces, produced in the hope they would win awards and bring recognition and prestige to the newspaper.
Media types – and newspaper editors in particular – obsess about winning awards.
The Lawrence Journal World for example, with some of the poorest basic news reporting going and a sports staff that are little more than KU basketball and football boosters, love to boast of the awards it wins each year.
Truth be known though, most media awards are little more than circle jerks.
which brings us to former Star investigative reporter Karen Dillon.
Karen Dillon
Two years ago Dillon got caught up in a KC Confidential shot heard round the world story that went viral. You remember, the Hunger Games scandal in which Dillon and another woman reporter were told by Star editors to decide amongst themselves which would get laid off by the newspaper.
It was a huge embarrassment for then new Star publisher Mi-Ai Parrish. who got hammered for the cold-hearted practice by everyone from journalist’s journalist Jim Romenesko, Fox News and NBC to USA Today, Politico and Republic of Moldova’s Der Geldblog.
That’s right, even Borat’s hometown paper laid the pipe to Parrish.
From that point on Dillon’s days at the Star were numbered and even though she prevailed over the younger reporter she’d been pitted against she was laid off the next year.
Following a short hitch at KSHB TV – and an even shorter one free lancing for The Pitch – Dillon landed an “investigative” gig at the Journal World and has been blazing the kind of journalistic trails never before blazed at the sleepy, small town paper.
Mi-Ai Parrish
“KU Chancellor Bernadette Gray-Little, a UNC professor and administrator for 38 years, has refused requests from the Journal-World and others to discuss the scandal,” Dillon wrote earlier this month. “Early leaks about the investigation’s findings last winter led her to release a short statement in February: ‘If I’d known of the problems in the Department of African and Afro-American Studies that have since come to light I would have taken action to address them.’
“Erinn Barcomb-Peterson, a KU spokeswoman, said the chancellor was not contacted by investigators and would have no further comment. “We won’t engage on the topic further,” Barcomb-Peterson said in an email.
Lame, huh?
Gray-Little
Gray-Little knows all too well how limp-wristed most local media is, so instead of coming clean, she conjured the Bill Cosby defense knowing she can get away with it.
“From 2006 to 2009, Gray-Little held the second and third highest positions of power at UNC — provost and executive vice chancellor,” Dillon continued. “From 1999 to 2006, she was dean of the college of arts and sciences, executive associate provost and senior associate dean. Those positions placed Gray-Little in a position of responsibility and oversight over the African and Afro-American Studies program and its curriculum.
Cosby
“Some say while Gray-Little may not have known details about the paper classes, they find it difficult to believe she did not know certain aspects of the program because so many student athletes took the fake classes and so many administrators, professors and athletic staff knew about the easy classes.”
It’s highly doubtful Dillon would have allowed to do that story at the Star.
Here’s how I know; the Star uses Journal World news – and vice versa – whenever it wants. And obviously it respects Dillon’s reporting skills, yet not a peep. However, don’t mess with KU when you don’t have to has long been the mantra of the sports section.
Fortunately as long as Journal World publisher Dolph Simons checkbook holds out, Dillon stories like the above, along with that of a high school senior who’s been missing for 26 years and the behind-the-scenes skinny on Dem Paul Davis strip club bust will continue to be the province of a tiny newspaper with like just over five percent the circulation of the Star.
However Dillon’s days of choking out but a handful of stories a year are long gone.
In her new life Dillon must endure having to write in stories like the one a bout a local homeowner who found a WWII hand grenade, a local cable company experiencing problems with its long distance service (land line alert) and Lawrence school libraries “weeding out obsolete books.”
McGraw
Meanwhile back at the Star, senior investigative elder Mike McGraw is long gone. He’s been pushing up daisies at KCPT, with nail biters like “Egg Lawsuit Costs Missouri” and “Chicken Rule Reaction.”
And religious hit grrrl Judy Thomas – who the Catholic League branded the “KC Star’s Rogue Reporter” – continues to serve up tantalizing tales such as “The Alter Boys Secret,” albeit at a glacier like pace, with only two stories all year to date.
So yeah, the glory days of local investigative reporting are probably behind us.
As Dillon so delicately put it put it after getting axed by the Star, “The role of a debt-leaden corporate newspaper is to paddle quietly in still waters always looking the other way and always protecting the corporation, not its readers.”
Hey, at least the game is still afoot, in the wilds of Lawrence, Kansas no less!
Finally someone points out that the Emperor has no clothes. If only McClatchy stockholders were paying as much attention.
The McClatchy stockholders – and the Knight Ridder stockholders before them – were the problem not the solution, Lydia.
They’re bottom line feeders and in today’s economy it’s all about the bottom line.
At some point the journalistic dust will settle – at least I think it will – and the Karen Dillons of the world will be properly appreciated and valued.
Right now though Corporate America is too busy playing Dutch Boy
Actually, the Journal-World has a pretty good reputation of investigative reporting even prior to this. Back during the glory days when Mike Shields was an editor and Dave Raney were there they did quite a bit of investigating of the Graves administration, something virtually every other paper in the state, and especially The Star, failed to do.
Scott Rothschild took over when they left for the Kansas Health Institute and also did a pretty good job of covering state government. he has now retired.
Perhaps the best job they did was when Dolph’s columns single-handedly put a kibbosh on the Sebelius/Dick Bond scam to transfer all of the profit centers at KU Med over to hospitals in KCMO. Week in and week out he covered illegal meetings and exposed the outright corruption of the Missouri whore pretending to be our Kansas governor (Davis was supported by the same crew and would have undoubtedly worked for their best interests also). The Star in its usual role of handmaiden to corruption completely ignored the story. (Judy Thomas was probably too busy trying to organize a cross burning in someone’s front yard to cover that particular story.)
To this day, if I had to count on one Kansas paper to come through when the chips were down in covering corruption in government in Kansas, it would be the Journal-World. Three cheers for Karen Dillon and all of the real investigative journalists out there who try and actually commit acts of journalism, speaking truth to power (something no McClatchy paper has ever done) without repect to ideology, or any other form of favoritism.
I think you may be right to an extent on the Journal World of old, John…
I won’t name my source there, but that ship has sailed.
And while I know you likely share Dolph’s politics, can you really imagine a more smug windbag? Just curious.
Talking down to the readership in unedited columns that repeat and repeat and repeat – with very little to no reporting – is not what I think of as journalism.
I don’t follow him that often, but if you go back and read what Dolph wrote about the hospital deal it was very solid and very informative.
Best of all is that the JW was the only one writing about it. As usual, The Sun and The Star were in on the scam and said virtually nothing about the entire sordid affair.
As for being smug, I can’t say, I have never met him. I think I wrote to him on a couple of occasions and did not get a response so apparently he didn’t think we shared much in common.
Oh well, with some luck, Karen Dillon will bring a breath of fresh air to the paper and give us something interesting to read about.
If you’re referring to story Dolph wrote about when the Sun was still around then you haven’t been keeping up.
Because I live here now and take the Journal World I see his Saturday column almost every week and they’re weak.
He has a good one every now and then, although when I think in terms of good, making an ass out of himself at times to the point of being quite funny passes for good.
meanwhile though, the better reporters and writers have moved on, John.
Just as the Star has gone from more than 2,000 employees back when your pal Rich Hood was still there to 600 and change today, the Journal World’s ranks have been decimated by the recession and the decline of the print media.
“Ave McClatchy, morituri te salutant!!”
Sign seen in employee restroom at KC Star.
Stultus est sicut stultus facit.
High school Latin, anyone?
why lead off an article about investigative journalists with an old photo of Craig Glazer?
Well, for starters it’s not that old…
And otherwise – I don’t know – what would you have picked?
*gets popcorn and waits for Chuck to respond on Ferguson*
🙂
investigative reporters…like wislun….you have some investigative reporters…
one of your news hound did a huge story and investigative high profile story about
some shoe repairs guys working on old shoes. Hard hitting with bullet force!
another of your new hounds did a storyabout a jewelry heist ring….butj forgot to
mention the name of the people…and the story flew away like an old insert from the
kc star. another dud!!!!!!
another news hound with big money tried to write a story about the republican
party…dropping names like glaze at a swingers party….it tunred out to be
a jumbled mess of a rich guy saying positive things about the worst economy
in the nation in Kansas…wow…was this guy off kilter or what? And yes…he
was writing stuff that most of the kcc crowd could not understand.
too many investigative reports here that went bad…bad followup….bad fact
check….no fact check….poor grammar (hahah!)….poor information gathering…
lots of name dropping but all bird droppings.
so don’t bang on any other investigative reporters…your crew is like
the keystone cops…..funny/animated/ but still very very wrong!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
also….calls receied this morning from st. Louis contacts.:
there was violence the night they announced the grand jury decision on brown…
but many many prosecutors are questioning the procedure followed by the
one in the brown case.
He just threw a bunch of evidence at the jury around a picnic bench
and let them fend for themselves. This makes it very complicated for the
jurors the way the evidence was presented because they only meet once a week…
and there’s no cohesion or flow to the prosecutors case.
The prosecutor is supposed to represent the people and the victim.
In this case he did not!!!! And from my contacts there’s still things to be
determined.
The violence was wrong…and it burned about 12 businesses which was bad.
80 arrests but 99% of the people in those areas had nothing to do with this.
The only thing this has done is awaken a huge giant…which we will see
all over America in 2016!!!!! The AA community has learned that its the vote
that matters…and they’re getting ready to take over the voting in about 12 key
states. Watch out…AA voters will be out in record numbers in 2016….it
will change the elections like never before. Add to that the millions of additional
Hispanics and new voters and you’ve got landslide on your mind!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
question throughout all of st. Louis and the nation:
why did the prosecutor follow an unusual format for this particular trial…
and why was all the evidence presented at the gj.?
more to follow…..
Harley knows what’s happening
McClatchy has had a host of problems, most of which center around running or managing newspapers. It was said that at one point that three shares of the company stock could buy you the news, provided you didn’t buy pencils with you Office Depot stock. Office Depot has changed. Enter the Cass County Democrat, a McClatchy newspaper in Cass County, who still owes a $10 lunch fee for lunch with the Cass County Coalition of Chambers. The excuse is that McClatchy let go everyone at the top, and hasn’t gotten used to accounting. The problem is still circulation, as everyone in the neighborhood takes the Pleasant Hill weekly. Also, Mr. Powell is a newspaper man, born to the trade, owning his own paper, and even though he posts a 30 year old picture of himself, one appreciates the news, even if he is on the wrong side, eh Stomper? We know of several outlets of news and information that are having a hard time finding and keeping decent management, some that will not be around next year. so from Kansas City’s tax benefits to the Star to a REIT purchasing the New York Times building in New York, all I can really ask is “Really?”
Huh ??? Not sure what you are saying about me there. Is it that I appreciate news but I’m on the wrong side???
If so, I’m good with that.
Don’t worry about it, Stomps…
You got trashed, live with it!
That was a little over my head Cowboy except for the McClatchy part..
McClatchy was the mouse that roared, the tiny privately-owned newspaper company that over extended itself at the exact wrong time and has been paying for it ever since.
Taking on that much debt was far too much. Trying to keep the ship of state alive while the newspaper industry went damn near belly up was costly to both the company (and its stockholders) and to readers of the individual newspapers who have suffered because of inept corporate management.
There’s little to no doubt that The Star would be a better news operation today had it remained a Knight Ridder product.
McClatchy wading into the fray was beyond merely bad for all concerned.
Hey, at least they’re still alive and kicking!
Hearne, you never told us what Dillon’s story was about. You just quote background and reaction. For those of us who don’t live in Lawrence, WTF?
Come on, Jesus…
I think the extensive quotes from Dillon’s story pretty well tell the story.
Hearne, you never tell us what Dillon’s story was about. Give us the lead, not just the background and no comments. Not all of us live in larryville.
Sorry Jesus but…
If you don’t know what Dillon’s story was about after all that I’m not sure I can help you.
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