How the mighty have fallen…
There’s so few survivors left at 18th & Grand it’s hard – but not impossible – to get a glimpse inside what’s left of the Kansas City Star these days.
That said, earlier this morning I spoke to one of the more recent higher ups to abandon ship about the state of things at KC’s newspaper of record.
For starters they’re in the process of migrating from the newspaper’s historic, but now sold, home at 18th and Grand.
“They’ve started the move into the press pavilion,” the source says. “And they’re structuring things there so that people will have office space, because the building really wasn’t designed with much office space.”
That despite that many Kansas Citians have long assumed the Star’s giant glass house was where everybody worked. Not the case. It’s really mostly just a housing for the newspaper’s huge printing press.
A $200 million, ill-timed investment in print journalism that’s been for sale for years.
“So they’re restructuring storage space and other space into office space,” the source explains. “But to tell you the truth, they really don’t have that many people left – a little over 200 people maybe – but I think they’ll get moved by the end of summer.”
As for watching KC’s once mighty news behemoth crumble into a shadow of what it once was, “I don’t have the heart for it any more,” sighs the source. “And you know what? I almost really don’t care and I still have friends there that I love.”
The $64 million question: How is it that the people who have overseen the Star’s failure to remain relevant – former editor turned McClatchy higher up Mark Zieman and embattled editor Mike Fanin are still at the helm?
“Blame it on McClatchy’s board of directors,” the source says.
I’m actually shocked they didn’t lock the front door years ago. Daily newspapers, with the exception of the NY Times and Washington Post, are completely irrelevant. Newspapers had a great run but their time has long passed.
Guess I’m guilty of being over optimistic, but the fact that they’re getting booted after hocking their historic home is more than a little unsettling.
Hard to imagine, but they apparently have no clue on how to devise a new approach to stem the tide of red ink.
Yet the exact same people are still in charge, thanks I guess, to an equally out of touch board
Obituary department was outsourced to Texas a couple of weeks ago with no prior notice. We didn’t get a chance to say goodbye to the local crew but weren’t too surprised.
Talk about death knells….
Hearne-
Please fix the “contact us” part of the home page, thanks.
I guess The Star is going the way of the defunct KC Times. Were they competing newspapers or were they owned by the same company?
Owned by the same company…they just consolidated into a single daily but they were still minting money for decades to come
Like a lot of people I’m surprised they’re still printing newspapers over 20 years after the Internet exploded. When I lived in Honolulu I probably bought the Honolulu Star and/or Advertiser 10-20 times from 2000-2006. I understand for some people old habits die hard but this is ridiculous. I suspect the fact that there were so many versions of PC’s and their Operating Systems it confused older people and they shied away because of the difficulty and confusion. The KC Star website was kinda lame up until around 2011-2012 when they finally got around to updating it to the 21st Century..this must mean there’s no money in it AT ALL.