Dead Tree Debate: Should We Feel Sorry For The Kansas City Star During Its Demise???

When they were on top . . . Corporate newspaper journalists were merciless with their power and threw down rhetorical lightning bolts from on high like the Greek god Zeus. Now some of the most formidable columnists from the newspaper glory days are mostly just trying to make a buck off their crappy blogs and social media profiles like everybody else in the world . . . A conversation about "journalism" is mostly a navel-gazing bad joke and the greatest accomplishment of Prez Trump so far might be exposing the useless cacophony of the world's biggest news outlets which have very little influence over the real world.

Still, Kansas City has a soft spot for nostalgia and here's public radio lamenting the decline of their colleagues and former coworkers. Take a peek:

KC Star Plans To Sell Building Where Generations Of Reporters Have Labored Since 1911

The owner of the Kansas City Star has a tentative agreement to sell the newspaper's headquarters at 1729 Grand Blvd., since 1911 a downtown landmark where a young Ernest Hemingway once reported.

Comments

  1. Just like vinyl records. They'll be around forever but they really won't matter to people who really love music.

    ReplyDelete
  2. The Star is/was a business, and just like any other business it survives and thrives or shrivels and dies according to how well it's managed and how effectively it can respond to changes in the market.
    The Star failed on both counts for years.
    Print journalism has been under great duress for years, with both readers and , even more importantly, advertisers going online.
    And the Star has the added challenges of being in a small market and owned by an out-of-town corporate conglomerate.
    Lots of good work over the years, but in recent years the paper has become a cheer-leading rag for KCMO city government, the Democratic Party, and developers, and lost whatever credibility and objectivity it may ever have had.
    A metro really can't be a serious community without reporters who investigate, report the news, and work to keep government open and honest.
    Failure has its consequences.

    ReplyDelete
  3. 6:27 is dead on the money

    ReplyDelete
  4. BYE BYE KC STAR BYE BYE KANSAS CITY. TIME TO GO BANKRUPT LIKE ALL THE OTHER LIBCROOK RUN CITIES

    ReplyDelete
  5. 6:27 is, as 7:14 mentions, dead on the money.

    "A conversation about "journalism" is mostly a navel-gazing bad joke and the greatest accomplishment of Prez Trump so far might be exposing the useless cacophony of the world's biggest news outlets which have very little influence over the real world."

    A pew report poll a year or so ago, revealed that 74% of Americans still get their news from the MSM, which is by and large, with very few exceptions, Liberal/Progressive. The Star's long slow descent into irrelevance and Chapter 11, only recently delayed by way of City Hall's permission to NOT pay taxes like the rest of us, so that they can continue to carry water for vanity projects and the election of Democrat candidates, is right around the corner.

    Long ago, had the Star maintained at least the pretense of objectivity and replaced token journalists like Lewis Donogood, who penned what seemed to be literally thousands of articles on the evils of whites during interminably long hagiographies on the same fuckin guy, Emitt Till, maybe the Star's customers would still be ponying up money for them, instead of "Tonying" up here.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Chuck, I knew you'd drag race into it and I wasn't disappointed.

      You could turn ordering a cheeseburger into a racist screed.

      Delete
  6. Better the newspaper's building for sale than their reporters for sale, right Kevin?

    ReplyDelete
  7. No business can survive when they insult and alienate half their potential customers. The Star's decline into irrelevance was self inflicted.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Newspapers play it so safe nowadays for the sake of advertisers. I think people would still read if reporters and editors regained their balls, instead of handing them over to be stored in City Hall's purse via tax abatements. They literally have a propagandist on their payroll, plus a team of jocksniffers who just seem like a publicist for a local team.

    It's over. They're out like the typewriter or telegram. They can save themselves if they let Steve Vockrodt tackle stories like he was once known for and such, but never in a million years. They're at the mercy of McClatchy.

    ReplyDelete
  9. The vast majority of newspapers in this country are struggling. Has nothing to do with ideology. If Bob's logic was correct, Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, etc. would have already gone belly up. Newspapers are dying because there are so many free options on the internet. Mighty hard to compete with entities that give away content for nothing.

    ReplyDelete
  10. If he wasn't already shit-canned , rich-kid Lewie Dikweed would be blaming the sale on..

    wait for it...."White Privilege"!

    So glad I bailed on the uber-lib Star over 10 years ago ---good riddance!

    ReplyDelete
  11. we were better off when when the paper was better.

    but that was then and this is now.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Gee, You mean Claire and Cleaver haven't gotten the president to declare the building a national treasure and gotten them free rent? Oh Yeah! I forgot. Hilliary lost. Damn Star came down on the wrong side of things and still haven't learned their lesson. Maybe Mizz Mary will save them.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Perhaps Carlos Slim or Bezos would like to add another leftard propaganda rag to their stable.

    Hmmmm. Probably not.

    ReplyDelete
  14. 9:55, the economics of national radio and television media are much different than for a local newspaper. When your potential audience is in the tens of millions, and your product is one that is very attractive to half that audience and is free or nearly so, you can still thrive. When your potential audience is in the tens of thousands, and your product is attractive to half the audience but totally alienates the other half, AND costs several hundred dollars a year, your business is in trouble.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Interesting building of the Neo-Medieval Fortress school of design.

    As infuriating as The Star could be, democracies need newspapers.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Democracy has nothing to do with newspapers. Quite the opposite. Communism relies on them for its propaganda.The internet sets and establishes the truth in those regimes.
    Here- their demise is poorly understood by newspaper leaders... otherwise they would thrive.
    Here is what newspaper leaders think:
    1. Let's help the world. We can do that by pissing off Republicans and adding more liberals to the editorial board with more slanted opinions that all the Michael Moore DVDs in the world propped up under a left leaning TV won't balance a TV that leans.
    2. Ignore the Internet. Or charge for viewing. People will pay big bucks to read the local rag. Great business model. This will pay off our glass house in no time.
    3. We can build a glass building. People love us and will. Ever throw stones at us. Oh- and we will ignore the adage " People who live in glass houses should not throw stones."
    4. We will keep editorial writers that are liberal... and let them send polarizing and divisive messages that will alienate half our readers. It's for their own good and we could care less if they leave. But they won't leave as we are a monopoly.
    5. We can afford to let veterans go and hire old sports writers. Huh?
    6. We will let poorly speaking foreign people answer our customer service phones... you know...so our readers can't understand and we won't really know if they missed a delivery or not.
    7. We can team up with the city and cheerless their every move... and that will just be a coincidence that we get tax breaks and no one will notice or complain or hate us any more than they do already.

    Feel free to add your own...

    ReplyDelete
  17. Who cares, the Star isn't worth toilet paper.

    ReplyDelete
  18. The Star is in the difficult position of finding itself completely obsolete. Even if they'd been practicing hard-hitting, compelling journalism it would be so. With its current status as lame shill for City Hall, how can it expect otherwise?

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

TKC COMMENT POLICY:

Be percipient, be nice. Don't be a spammer. BE WELL!!!

- The Management