Sir Jason
Don’t wanna bore you, but my January garage fire soap opera is nearing an end…
Meaning, I’ll soon have more time to help you guys limp through this ultra lame time in which what passes for straight-down-the-line “news” is virtually impossible to find.
I digress…
The latest: former 435 Magazine changed its name late last year (I think) to Kansas City Magazine (possible jinx?)and is offering “11 Ambitious And Offbeat Ways To Make Kansas City A Better Place To Live” in its April issue.
About time, right?
Actually, 435, er KC Mag, has been doing a decent job job (maybe even financially, considering Covid.) Its April issue for example is 100 pages in length with about 35 pages of ads (50 to 60 being the sweet spot).
And while its tongue-in-cheek cover story is replete with zany stuff like Kansas City becoming “the Detroit of flying cars,” tiny homes revolutionizing homeless shelters and an “eye in the sky” to slow down homicides, it also gives a shout out to the know-it-alls at KC’s newspaper of record.
“What if Somebody Bought The Star And Turned It Into A Nonprofit? it begins.
“The McClatchy Company, owner of The Kansas City Star, declared bankruptcy last year. The paper was then sold to a hedge fund,” it continues. “It’s early to say definitively how that will impact the Star, but we know what’s happened in other cities where hedge funds bought metro dailies. They aggressively cut jobs in an attempt to maximize short-term profits, then discard the corporate carcass once there’s no more cash to squeeze from it. The city is left with a hollowed-out institution no longer capable of keeping its citizens informed.”
A fairly harsh – probably realistic – assessment.
Which goes on to remind us that the Star has already shed plenty of staff – about 90 percent by my measure.
“Print advertising is in rapid decline due to a permanent change in consumer behavior, and the digital advertising dollars that were supposed to offset those losses are being hoovered up by tech platforms like Facebook and Google. Who wants to pay for a subscription when the paper keeps laying off staff?”
KC Mag’s solution: Go non profit like the Philadephia Inquirer and Tampa Bay Times.
Just one problem; the jury’s out on whether either of those dailies will survive the switch.
“Katie” Real name unknown
The Nieman Journalism Lab think tank’s take:
“Three years into nonprofit ownership, The Philadelphia Inquirer is still trying to chart its future,” its story begins.
“The Philadelphia Inquirer is trying to both build and be the local newsroom of the future — at the same time. The Inquirer was once arguably the nation’s premier metro daily, with a 700-strong newsroom, bureaus around the world, and a run of 17 Pulitzer Prizes in 18 years.
“But it suffered through a miserable stretch between 2006 and 2016, with five different owners (and two bankruptcy auctions). When that last owner, Gerry Lenfes decided three years ago to donate the paper to nonprofit ownership donate the paper into nonprofit ownership — what would become the Lenfest Institute for Journalism — it sparked a lot of hope and excitement in a depressed industry.”
But despite some clever marketing ploys, “unresolved financial issues, a new round of buyouts, less-than-stellar staff morale, and a leadership vision some consider hazy on specifics remind the Inquirer that it’s not safe yet,” the study concludes.
“The news in the newspaper business lately is all about hedge funds and private equity treating civic institutions as cows to be milked until dry. They cut to the bone and then beyond. But the Inquirer is evidence that even with the profit motive removed — even with a civic-minded ownership structure aimed specifically at preserving local journalism — it’s still no easy task. Conversations with journalists at The Philadelphia Inquirer — both on and off the record, with leadership and rank and file — show some of that early optimism has worn off.”
Another all too familiar big no-no, to try and skirt:
“Under IRS rules, nonprofit ownership does not give the organization carte blanche to fund a money-losing, for-profit operation. So Lenfest can’t just see how far in the red the Inquirer is every year and pay out the difference from its endowment. The IRS also often doesn’t look kindly on a nonprofit that seems to only support one specific business. So Lenfest spreads its giving to a number of Philadelphia-area news outlets and addresses many of its efforts at local newspapers and outlets nationwide.”
So much for attempting to turn tax breaks into fool’s print journalism gold…
Just two years ago the Inquirer approached its union with the bad news that it needed 30 employees to take buyouts to avoid layoffs.
The Elephant in KC Mag’s room:
That the Star’s editors and editorial board continue to ignore and alienate more than half their potential readership by abandoning ship on even halfway fair and balanced news coverage. Choosing instead to cater to themselves and their more far left followers.
Gone are the days when the local newspaper even pretended to try to appear even-handed.
These days even one of the Star’s most popular and controversial writers ever – sports columnist Jason Whitlock – wouldn’t stand a chance of surviving a newsroom where woke white dudes like Sam Mellinger’s idea of controversial sports writing lame are lame columns like, “Stop with the keep sports out of politics stuff.”
Does anybody much really care what Sam the Sham thinks about world affairs?
Whitlock’s paycheck-driven departure from the Star gave Mellinger his shot, and while Sam’s done ok (but nothing much to distinguish himself, especially when he tries to venture into actual news commentary.)
In today’s Star, Whitlock would be far too right to survive the woke, cancel culture.
Plus they still couldn’t afford him.
Oh well, life goes on – even after former KC Mag freebie mooch Katie Van Luchene.
Interesting perspective.
I will say I like Whitlock simply due to the fact he lays it out there like a birthday cake minus the frosting. You hear what the real story is that’s usually covered up by other writers or publishers to scared to speak the truth.
I’d much rather see the truth of it all than say stories done by say your old buddy Glazer. That old line from the movie that goes something like you can’t handle the truth is a myth. The people really do want the truth, it’s just that publishers and writers such as your self to often think the truth is boring or don’t want to admit to the real truth for being afraid it might make them look bad.
José N. Harris once said it the best of anyone. “There is beauty in truth, even if it’s painful. Those who lie, twist life so that it looks tasty to the lazy, brilliant to the ignorant, and powerful to the weak. But lies only strengthen our defects. They don’t teach anything, help anything, fix anything or cure anything. Nor do they develop one’s character, one’s mind, one’s heart or one’s soul.”
That a shot?
If you think so, I can’t change it if you do. But you opened a door here maybe you don’t want to really walk through? Your story started out one way but ended with comments about “fair and balanced news coverage”. That is what I am commenting about. I have often said if the truth hurts you maybe that is one way to make a person take a hard look at themselves. This comment wasn’t a personal attack on you, but on news/publishing as a whole. I see from your comment I must have struck a nerve.
Easy, Big Fella…
My comment was making light of it!
No harm, no foul.
Just having a quick update with a footnote about 435 Magazine switching to KC Mag and trying to mix in a suggestion for the Star into a largely joking kinda feature story.
The Star going non profit idea was one of the more serious suggestions, but looking into it a little deeper, it became pretty obvious that there was no quick fix for the examples cited in terms of making all of the daily newspaper difficulties go Away.
Too bad, but I thought it was worth sharing for those who may have actually thought it might have been a cure
Unless a complete change of leadership and writers takes place at the Star nothing will change and people will continue to slowly walk away as they have done. I like reading a good story same as the next person what I don’t like is one sided news and public stories. Honestly I was never really impressed with 435 magazine. But I as well said you had an interesting perspective of it all but the Star killed itself and you can only resuscitate something that’s dead for so long before you have to step back and let it go.
They pretty much have changed out all the writers – most of ’em anyway – but even though Mark Ziemanbailed rather unceremoniously a year ago, the same old tired and unimaginative people remain at or near the top. AND basically what they’re doing is trying top dodge the Cancel Culture bullet by kissing up[ to and/or allowing newcomers like the entire new editorial board to trample over the journalistic standards they embraced for so long, up until mostly the past five or seven years.
In effect,Mike Fannin is kinda the Joe Biden front man for todays KC Star.
The $64 million question: How much longer will it take for the new Star staffers to wake up and realizing he’s just as much a part of the problem as pretty much most all the conservatives else they now despise
LOL. The Star has been a non profit for the past 15 years.
The Star has made their bed, now they have to lie (or lay, could be a Freudian slip) in it. They have espoused Progressive talking points, made the genuflection to the Woke agenda, and thrown shade on every GOP position for the 30 years I have lived here.
Their only paying customers these days are the older, whiter, liberal, COVID fearing citizens that are are down with the 1619 cause. Everyone else discontinued this nonsense years ago. To change now would chase off the remaining stragglers that don’t know how to get an internet or cancel the auto pay.