Tax dodge, anyone?
Seems like anything goes at the Kansas City Star these days. And as the saying goes, a drowning man will clutch at a straw. Or as the Cambridge Dictionary defines it, ‘someone who is in a very difficult situation will take any available opportunity to improve it.”
As evidenced by an unsettling news story in Sunday’s Star that ran under the headline, “Subscribe or donate: Help KC Star keep covering coronavirus.”
A deeper dive reveals that unlike most news stories addressing business issues involving the newspaper, this one ran sans a reporter’s byline. Instead the byline reads, “BY THE KANSAS CITY STAR.”
Trust me, very unusual.
In a nutshell, the story beseeches locals to subscribe to the newspaper or “even better, you can suggest friends and neighbors do the same.”
And while that sounds pretty lame, in the words of Bachman Turner Overdrive, you ain’t seen nothing yet!
Check it:
“If you’d like to help and you’re a subscriber, you can now make a tax deductible donation to preserve local journalism,” it continues. “We have partnered with the nonprofit Local Media Foundation, which is accepting contributions on our behalf.”
Hold it right there…
What’s a tiny, fishy-sounding non profit in Lake City, Michigan doing laundering money for a for profit biz like the Star?
Good question, says a Kansas City attorney who was dumbfounded by the concept.
“You’re not buying a subscription to the Star, you’re donating to the Local Media Foundation which is a non profit, which takes your donation and siphons it off to the Kansas City Star – which is a for profit company – and you get a tax deduction for it,” the attorney says. “What kind of bullshit is that?
“I mean, how can you use a non profit to give money to a company that is for profit and you get a tax deduction?”
A check of the Local Media Foundation’s website and most recent tax returns reveals its so-called mission statement is “to educate and guide media companies through their digital transformation” and “is intensely focused on helping local media companies discover new business models that will support and sustain local journalism.”
The $64 million question:
What in the above “mission statement” has anything to do with turning a for profit venture like the Star into non profit?
“Their mission is to give these for profit companies advice on business models,” the attorney says. “This is not giving them advice, this is providing them a conduit for money. This is unbelievable. And that’s not what their mission states, and when you’re a 501-C you have to abide by your mission statement. When you’re tax exempt there are rules that you have to abide by or you’ll lose your tax exempt status.’
There’s more.
“Here’s another issue,” the attorney adds. “What service is that media company providing to the Kansas City Star? Because if all they’re doing is providing money to the to the (newspaper) – soliciting donations – what else are they supposed to be bringing to the table here? I mean, anybody can solicit money – anybody can do that – what other services are they providing to the Star? It just sounds lame.”
Missing in action: the percentage of donations that will accrue to the newspaper.
“When I give money to a charity, the first thing I ask is how how much of my money is actually going to the targeted organization,” the attorney says. “Like if I donate $100, how much is the Kansas City Star going to get? I mean, if I donate $100 and the Star only gets $10, I wouldn’t do it. I think that’s public information they have to provide.”
A check of the website givebutter identified in the Star story, reveals that as of late Monday, 87 people had donated just over $7,000 to the, uh, cause.
The Star’s hoped-for magic number: $200,000.
The site is identified as, “The Kansas City Star Covid-19 Local News Fund.”
“The pandemic has brought layoffs, furloughs and salary reductions to newsrooms large and small,” it reads. “We’re fighting to hold the line, like many local businesses, and so far we’ve done so thanks to your readership and support via digital and print subscriptions.
“But it’s a steep hill, and we’re thinking creatively about how to climb it.”
Creatively? Seriously?
That’s certainly one way to describe it.
Another might be tackily, illegally.
Especially given the placement of the Star’s money grab story Sunday, right next to the heartbreaking tale of a Kansas City woman who died tragically after contracting the virus in her job as a nurse at Research Medical Center.
“I find that really tacky,” says the attorney. “I mean, here’s this poor woman who died and they’re trying to make money off her misfortune…But it’s not a non profit cause – that’s what gets me – and they made the horrible decision to put it right next to the story about the woman who died.
“It’s not just tacky – it’s more than that – it’s manipulative and opportunistic.”
Stay tuned…
“It’s a great idea and I hope it helps our independent, historic journalistic landmark succeed,” said another anonymous person who also probably doesn’t exist.
Wow, talk about the voice from the tomb…
Nice to hear from the dude who hired me, lo those many years ago
Hearne mentioned this week that he and Whitlock were the top paid columnists at The Star.. let’s ask ourselves why. It is because they were deep in local concerns. Way deep. Yes Whitlock would take on a controversial national issue but generally he was all KC in his hit it home strategy. Hearne obviously had inside baseball on KC culture, high society, low society, and the best part of Hearnes column is that he had like 5-10 segments on the happenings. It was appointment reading and people miss it. Had to be a lot of work because he could just hit “send” and have the column printed or posted. I thought The Star was looking brighter with Vockrodt but he is trying to get the Pulitzer prize on every article. Blocking and tackling.. do your job every week.
Thanks, Rainbow…
Obviously, I’m mailing it in for free these days.
Uh, sorry about that.
Steve is a cool dude though…very sincerely and we used to commiserate when he was trying to make the jump from the Pitch to the Star.
I remember him being on the verge of having to get a REAL job and maybe moving back to Colorado where his family lives.
He was thisclose…
Unfortunately, at this point in time, he’ll be among the last to be let go, but truth one known, he’s probably wrestling with that unfortunate reality as we speak
I wonder if McClatchy is making money hand over fist(like A LOT of other media outlets) via this coronavirus worldwide hoax? If not, then McClatchy isn’t worth their measly 9 cent stock price.
Look, going broke is no fun…
I get that and everybody with a pulse understands how tough things are and can be.
And as a readers of the Star – for better and for worse – I obviously would be sad to see them go.
Then again, they are so poorly run these days that wading through the days news can be trying.
Too bad they have a convicted felon running the show and and an editorial board that is basically a localized version of MSNBC meets CNN.
Yeah, it’d be sad if the Star went the way of tombstone-less Glaze. Nostalgia: I remember back in the late 70’s I’d walk up the hill every day to get the then named K.C. Times by pretending to drop a quarter into the newspaper rack and perform my nifty trick to release the paper from it’s metal and Plexiglas bond. I miss ole’ McGuff’s prose along with the entertainment section, had to keep up with what was showing at Blue Ridge Cinema East and the Dove and Chelsea.
Wow, you have a wealth of experience for a guy still in his 30s!
I finally bit the bullet and stopped my daily paper delivery for the online only e-edition. I had been a subscriber since 2004 but no longer used the paper delivery instead just reading online..,,huge savings but I do not think I will miss the paper copy….
Curious how much you were paying for your print subscription, Dee…
I have been at like $10 a month for the past three or so years.
The unfortunate aspect of the online subscription is they make very little money – comparatively – than what they HAVE made in print.
Meaning, they have yet to come to terms with a business model that can sustain their current overhead.
Hence this desperate and embarrassing attempt to raise a pittance of what the newspaper needs to survive…hence my drowning man metaphor
My yearly rate was $1334 for the paper delivery….the monthly online online edition is $14.62
You are (were?) a trooper, Dee…
You’re right, it used to cost a FORTUNE to subscribe to the Star…even at the employee discount and they all but forced us to subscribe.
That said, as a KCC reader, you undoubtedly read as far back as three or four years ago, that if you played hardball, you could get it for 10 bucks month.
And truth be told, my hunch is you could get the online sub for $100 a year tops!
Yes, I realized the discounts were and are out there….to be honest I do not mind paying the 14.62 a month….I think local journalism is important and is a watchdog and check on the local scene…that said once I started reading online I never really even looked at the paper copy anymore…and as I rebid all my insurance bills in March we went ahead and did the reduced KC Star subscription…
Here is a prediction…all the McClatchy newspapers go to one “national edition” with a local city based insert you would receive based on where you live…think USA Today with a KC STAR insert. It would allow them to continue cutting cost and I do not see a paper copy beyond maybe a Sunday edition in a couple years anyhow…
I gotcha, Dee…
Compared to what you had been paying, it’s a steal. And you don’t want local news to go away, also understandable.
I do wish they had a more balanced approach like they did before all the experienced editors and reporters went to the unhappy hunting ground.
The new editorial board, for example, is pretty annoying and predictable to the point of being borderline generic.
I’m going to bounce your idea off a few places and see what comes back.
Remember Art Brisbane’s prediction like 10 years ago? Back when journalistic miscreants like Steve Rose still roamed the land.
Steve Rose…now there is a blast from the past…didn’t he make it big cashing in a family run string of newspapers and shoppers in Johnson County? I agree on the editorial slant…I am not conservative but most of the editorial page is predictable..,letters to the editor can be insightful at times….I have followed your site here for awhile and agree they days of the paper copy outside a Sunday edition is going the way of the do-do bird…
Well, Steve was writing for the Star up until a bit over a year ago when he crash and burned by making up stuff about a Kansas poilition and took a bullet
I finally agreed to pay $227/year (complete, after tax, or about $4.37/week) for the daily delivery of about 4 sheets of toilet paper to my driveway. Then they cut out Saturdays, so I asked for a 1/7th refund of that, but they disagreed. The way I see it, they deliver maybe about $100 worth of “goods and/or services” to my driveway each year, so I figure I’m already giving them a “donation” of another $127.
Very generous of you…