Star Search: Week-Old Web News Tops Front Page, Hendricks Face Plants Again
Who said news need be new?
The uppermost headline on today’s front page: “March Puts Car Market In Drive; In the month’s first eight days, U.S. sales hit an annualized rate of 12.5 million, a Web site finds.”
Breaking news about the auto industry unearthed by the hometown paper?
Nah, this news isn’t new.
One week to the day earlier satwaves.com reported the same news from the same source pointed to by the Star on today’s front page.
Edmunds findings were released and reported March 11th. The Star waited a week, tarted it up some by folding in other widely circulated statistics, then garnished the story with quotes from local car dealer/advertisers.
Nice schmooze.
The flip side of today’s front page ruse: an excellent story by art critic Alice Thorson fleshing out the Johnson County Museum’s plans for a museum dedicated to suburbia.
Local: Man, a two-bagger today from columnist Mike Hendricks. Not only does Mad Mike eat a correction on page A-5 for falling for a phony MySpace page pretending to belong to Fox News goofball Glenn Beck’s wife. He dedicates an entire column to the flub up.
Beck outed Hendricks for the journalistic faux pas on his nationally radio show that is heard on more than 400 stations. That triggered both the correction and column tap dance by Hendricks. blaming his blunder on the Internet. Pretty silly stuff.
Business: Nothing to write home about here, other than AT&T laying off 140 local workers.
Remembrances: OK, OK – you don’t need to be reminded on a daily basis that this section is an advertising vehicle and the more you pay, the bigger the play. Hey, vanity sells. I’ll keep an eye on the section though and tell you if I recognize any notables.
Sports: Nothing here all but the most zealous sports fans can’t live without or have gotten elsewhere.
FYI/Preview: Pearl Jam May 3rd at Sprint goes on sale Friday.
Damn, missed Kinks main man Ray Davies at Liberty Hall Monday. 
Promoter Jeff Fortier says it was a kick ass concert but judging by the setlist it was pretty much a nostalgia show. Believe it or not, Davies more recent work is far more relevant and entertaining.
Capable new Star restaurant critic Jill Silva says new O.P. eatery Hot Basil on 119th Street rates three stars for food and two for service and atmosphere.
That’s out of four, by the way, and holy mother of god, the Star even tells you that that at the end of the review. No grid searches necessary.
We’re done. Now go and sin no more.
March 18th, 2010 at 7:23 am
The Star’s story had plenty of LOCAL reaction from LOCAL dealers. It’s always interesting to see if/how national trends are playing out locally, and Heaster, who has been covering the local auto industry for quite a while now, does a good job of it.
You know: LOCAL news in a LOCAL paper. It’s a useful tack. Think I’ll go buy one.
March 18th, 2010 at 8:55 am
2 days of real Spring and an upper cut this weekend. Thanks Gary! You can find me glued to a flat screen somewhere until April. Go KU,MU,and KSU…big run in tourney is great for area.
Hearne you sure have a lot of loyal haters that like to waste time here, odd no? A guy I follow online once told me to buy GRMN—Because people want to know WHERE TF THEY ARE! Same with KC STAR people want to know What TF is going on.
“Business: Nothing to write home about here”
This is the meat of the entire universe right now. Market Volatility very low…epic Market melt up from March 09, eerily same reaction to 1929.
Major shift of Wall St. to Washington DC in just last 18 months. Health Care 30% of GDP!
FED balance sheet with FNM FREDMC (unprecedented)
We have gone from the GOLD Standard to the housing standard with Chinese drywall.
March 18th, 2010 at 11:15 am
Local dude – may I call you that? – if the Star wanted to stress local car dealers in the story (and not pretend the 8 day national car sales bump was the news), why did all three front page headlines address the already-old ,national news about the Edmunds findings? There’s more than 12 column inches on the front page and not a hint of anything local to come.
Most readers will never even get to the jump where the story becomes a hodgepodge less than compelling quotes from this dealer and that. The money quote – if there is one – is the one that notes March is the start of the car-buying season.