I get it…
When skating on ice as thin as the Kansas City Star is the last thing one can afford to do is sit back and mail it in. So it’s not surprising that the know-it-all editorial board folks at the newspaper weigh in daily on anything and everything….regardless of their expertise and biases.
One concept that seems to escape them is that sometimes less is more.
And a modicum of unbiased coverage could go a long way when it comes to attracting readers of a less radical persuasion.
But the same old, same old beat goes on.
Take today’s editorial on Josh Hawley’s dismantling of Claire McCaskill, for example.
It’s hard to imagine a big city newspaper being more petty and catty, Especially given that the Star went out of its way to exonerate McCaskill from getting majorly busted via an embarrassing under cover investigation that revealed that she was lying to conservative voters in order to try and get elected.
But forget McCaskill’s dishonest duplicity…
The Star seized on the fact that the investigators busted McCaskill by using hidden cameras, which they say is a violation of the newspaper’s so-called reporting guidelines.
Memo to the Star: The folks that busted McCaskill don’t work for McClatchy.
What really rankled the newspaper about McCaskill’s loss last night was that its attempted PR bust of Hawley turned out to be a snoozer that nobody outside of the Star’s two-time DUI busted editor gave a rip about.
So the editorial board rang in Hawley’s victory by giving him a scolding.
“Missouri voters rewarded Josh Hawley for running a completely generic and thoroughly dishonest campaign by electing him to the senate,” it begins.
Talk about poor losers…
“They overlooked the hypocrisy involved in claiming that incumbent Claire McCaskill had become a creature of Washington…Yet unlikely as it seems right now, we have to hope that Hawley will be more serious about this new post…”
Geez, it reads like a social media post by some friend of a cheerleader who got dumped by the captain of the football team.
Given the paper’s predictable, Dem dominated editorial endorsements, it’s amazing that the Star’s circulation hasn’t plummeted further from its glory days when they had more than 2,000 employees (versus maybe 200) 10 years back.
And make no mistake, unless somebody higher up the corporate ladder steps in and restores a modicum of balanced reporting and opinions, things will continue to get more and more desperate until people start looking to jimmycsays for news and guidance.
The folks at the Star are bitter because their McCaskill endorsement and anti Republican rhetoric failed. The sad truth is no one cares about the Star’s endorsements.
That’s probably true, Mark and having read it and worked there at length though, I wonder.
Maybe for some of the older readers – as in most – it serves as kind of cheat sheet for them to get some kind of idea on how to vote because they’re clueless.
Then again, I perused their picks on the issue type voting to get a basic idea of what a couple of them were…not that Used the Star picks to guide me. Quite the opposite actually.
Still, as dated as it all seems they seem to be convinced that people are interested…narcisism, anyone? They’re sure not shy about talking down to about half their potential audience. Not too smart, if you ask me.
“Objective” journalism, died during the Jurassic period. We are in the age of Prima donna journalism, where the likes of Jim Acostyou gathers his fans around after his performances during White House briefings and signs autographs. On camera later, as his adoring public looks on, he tugs at his chin, sucks his gums, shoots his cuffs and pontificates (Shills) on the weighty issues of the day, while hoping for a gig on Steven Kolbert.
The Kansas City Star is deader than dinosaurs.
They’re not dead yet Chuck, but they’re digging pretty fast…
My GF read yesterday’s sophomoric Josh Hawley smear editorial and aside from being a bit dumbfounded, she said, “Oh, they’re just trying to sell newspapers.”
Au contraire, I replied.
The opposite is the case. If they had half a clue about wanting to stop their already massively diminished circulation’s freewill, they’d stop insulting the intelligence of half their potential readership and embark on a more even handed course of reporting news and offering opinions.
Seriously, the halfway even keeled to conservative subscribers they have left have to hold their nose’s politically speaking in order to get the in depth reporting that they do do well, that’s unavailable at other local news media.
Newsflash for the stiffs still working at the Star. No one gets their political information/opinions from the newspaper editorial section anymore. Too many other outlets for good information. No one cares about you anymore.
McCaskill getting punted in the election came as a suprise to no one.
With the possible exception of Claire and her posse at the local newspaper
She probably would have lost the last time but the tea party guy was a goof
Yep, she lucked out…
Or if you would believe the Star she engineered her luck.
All newpapers are for profit enterprises.
When do you break the real reason Kander dropped out?