That Noise You Just Heard Was the Death Knell of the Kansas City Star

Yes, sadly, I'm afraid we just saw the precursor of our only local newspaper dying.

Hedge fund wins auction for 

Kansas City Star publisher

What this means, of course, is that this hedge fund, capitalistic, money grubbing, profit only ghouls that they are, will, one by one, cut costs and cut costs and possibly raise the pricing and sell things off left and right until there is nothing there.

I give them a year.

In one year or less, the Kansas City Star will be no more.

And though it is a shadow of its former self, the role a newspaper has to play is an important one.

A very important one. An extremely important role.

• Without a newspaper and their reporters, there will be no one to report on City Hall.
• No one to report on the Mayor.
• The City Council.
• County offices and what they do.
• County representatives.
• State offices and how they effect the area, the region and all of us.
• State representatives and their actions and intentions.
• Trends in the area.
• Highway construction and all its impacts and effect on all of us.

And so much more.

There will be, there is, no organization left to pick up this news and information slack.

The local TV news stations and their reporting, such as it is, if you can call it reporting, touch--and I mean touch--once in a while, on one or some of the biggest, fleeting stories, at best, at most. They'll show some big car wreck or police stakeout but for big, day to day coverage?  We've seen how they go from those, again, big "blow up", brief stories right to some cute little duck YouTube video showing it cross a road because a child helped it out. Or some other pointless, inane 10 second video.

Hard hitting, important news? From a 22 minute, local nightly TV show?

Fuggedaboudit.

And then there's local bloggers. Yes, I know. The irony and maybe even hypocrisy isn't lost on me, reporting about bloggers.

But here's the deal, I don't remotely try to touch on local reporting. It's not my goal nor ever has been.  Just don't say or think some local blogger can or will take up this news gathering slack. It isn't going to happen. They have no reporters, nothing.

Finally, there is the community that is built by having a newspaper. There is the foundation that is--was, used to be--set by having us all read the same source and get good, solid information about our area, our region, our state, our city and county. We were all "on the same page" literally and figuratively. It gave us all a place to start and naturally we wouldn't then all agree on everything but we had that shared base. It did bring us together.

No, it's not just a sad day for Kansas City and the metropolitan area.

It's a tragic day.

We will all be less informed, even less informed, far less informed if not, dare I say it,  even dumber yet.

Honestly.

I'd love to be wrong about this. I'd love to be mistaken. I'd nearly put money on it I'm not.

Links:

Why We Need Newspapers

Why Newspapers Are Still Important to Journalism?

Why We Need Local Newspapers to Protect the Common Good 

This is why we need newspapers

Why We Need Newspapers, Why We Need the Star

Two excellent examples, presently, from our own Kansas City Star of why, exactly, we need newspapers, yes, and our own Kansas City Star. It's this kind of reporting.

Why was Missouri conservation director paid for years of comp time after termination?

Worlds of Fun was sued for polluting. Then Missouri loosened its pollutant limits

Who, exactly, does the footwork, does the research for articles like these on local and state government if newspaper reporters aren't out there?

Local bloggers?

Certainly not.

On top of these examples, there was the series they did earlier in the year about the nearly complete lack of transparency of the state of Kansas government to its residents.

Effectively, our local paper covers local, city governments of several cities in the area, but also 2 state governments, of course, in Missouri and Kansas.

If you already subscribe to the Star, either the online or paper versions, or both, good on you. Keep it up. If you don't subscribe presently, please do so. At minimum, subscribe for the online version.

I Have a Bad Feeling About This

I have a bad feeling about this.

I was downtown last week at the Kansas City Star building and saw all these tiles. There were lots of them. Apparently they are going to put them all over the West side of the Star's building, on an outdoor entrance area.

The idea is fine and all, if maybe a kind of waste of advertising dollars. The people are just going in the building. It doesn't mean they'll buy a subscription to the paper because they see these.

But here's the thing.

I have this bad feeling that these tiles are going to outlast the paper.

I'd so love to be wrong.