TKC BREAKING AND EXCLUSIVE NEWS!!! KANSAS CITY STAR BRINGS BACK MOVIE CRITIC ROBERT BUTLER AS FREELANCER!!!

The decline of Kansas City Dead Tree Media continues but at least they're still attempting to offer some decent content as they circle the toilet bowl of history.

To wit . . .

ROBERT BUTLER IS COMING BACK TO THE KANSAS CITY STAR AS A FREELANCER!!!

The celebrated Kansas City movie dude was doing nicely working a gig with the KC Public Library and his blog was a worthwhile offering for local cinema aficionados.

On the other hand, The Star's movie review offerings were DECIMATED with his absence and totally lacked any substance. The freelance role should be a nice way to fill that void.

A few observations:

- Part-Time employment with Dead Tree Media is the future, this option has been offered to nearly all of the employees they cut and it's a cruel cost saving measure but part of their transition to a non-profit publication. 

- The newspaper simply wasn't able to replace Butler. Obviously, he's one of the most informed and talented movie critics in all of the Midwest. Still, this speaks to the newspaper's inability to develop talent over the long-term. Real talk: Newspaper people are mostly jerks and they don't like to see anybody else get ahead.

- On the other hand, Cinema KC and the Kansas City IFC have yet to step up their Internets game and still seem to think of their social media efforts as mere promotion . . . In short, the local cinema community still isn't organized, which is part of what makes it so much fun despite the resurgent effort to take the whole thing corporate with the new Kansas City film office redux.

Nevertheless, we look forward to reading Butler's work as he remains one of the very few reasons to pick up a paper or dig deep into a website mostly littered with a broken paywall system and roadblock advertising for a Chinese furniture retailer mega-box-store.

Developing . . .