Hearne: End of the Trail for ‘Star Magazine’

Star Magazine columnist Cindy Hoedel

And another one bites the dust…

After 45 years, the Kansas City Star newspaper’s Star Magazine is no more. The weekly tabloid was distributed inside the financially all-important Sunday edition where it bridged the divide between hard news, sports and entertainment.

Over the years Star Mag blossomed as a showcase for feature writers and photographers.

More recently, it had become something of a catch all for society schmooze pics that previously appeared (albeit more selectively) in the long gone “society section,: schmaltzy connection stories, abbreviated travel tips that used to appear in the now defunct”travel section,” syndicated items, flashbacks down Hippie Trippie Lane and snapshots of small town life, people and places .

Some of Star Mag’s profiles were good – like the one about jeweler Harold Tivol a few years back – but too many served as little more than excuses to promote various forms of diversity via writing about obscure, not wildly interesting people.

Speaking of flashbacks…

Harold Tivol

When I first started at the newspaper in the early-mid 1990s, the woman who rode heard over the weddings section battled diligently to avoid running fake photos of gay dudes posing as brides and fake names such as Richard “Dick” Fitswell out of the newspaper.

Those were the days.

Bonnie & Dyana Bishop

But no need for that sort of police work now, as in recent years Star Magazine has gone out of its way to populate its “Love Story” featurette with gay couples. As was the case in Sunday’s farewell to arms which featured a pair of gay women who “met at a picnic five years ago” and got married in Des Moines.

So times have clearly changed.

All of that said, color it another sad passing as the newspaper of record in Kansas City continues to struggle and regroup in the Digital Age.

And if you’re looking for a reason as to Star Mag’s demise, look no further than the ad count in its farewell issue. Four and one half pages of ads out of 24 pages.

That’s less than 18 percent.

Even the beleaguered Pitch runs close to the needed minimum 50 percent mark. And its publisher just got canned, I mean, resigned.

Raising the question, what will become of Star Mag staffers now that the worm has turned?

Truly unfortunate.