Layoffs at The Star

[FangKC]

The Business Journal is reporting that Star employees are forming a union.

[Cratedigger]

https://www.aol.com/news/coming-home-ka ... 00138.html

New opinion editor at the Star beginning June 12th. From the University of Oklahoma's Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication, where she served as assistant dean for student affairs. However, prior to academia she worked at The Kansas City Star from 1996 to 2006 in various roles, including news editor and deputy features editor.

[bspecht]

Will the Star ever have office space again? Seems incredibly odd not to. Only address out there currently is for The UPS Store on the Plaza.

They have 67 journalists at the moment. https://www.kansascity.com/news/local/i ... 90019.html

[smh]

I am often wondering about the future of news in KC. Can our metro succeed without a decent newspaper (digital or otherwise)? I love KCUR, KCPT and find myself reading the Missouri Independent and occasionally the Beacon, but I also don't think any of these operations have the resources to really follow stories and understand the city in the way the Star did for generations. Now when I look at the Star's website or read its coverage I am often embarrassed by the low quality and I worry about a region without deep news coverage.

And, frankly, I miss the cultural reporting and criticism. This city needs a restaurant critic and an architecture/city critic, etc. Not to be mean or critical but to provide a voice that helps everyone raise their respective game and drive the conversation.

Also, I miss Yael and I miss Mellinger.

Is there a solution?
Am I overstating the concern?

[moderne]

They have offices in Crown Center and half a dozen reporters on the restaurant beat. But there has not been an art/architecture critic for decades. Maybe since Donald Hoffman?

[herrfrank]

^Sad. The KCBJ has reporting covering the engineering firms that differentiate KC and provide thousands of white collar jobs. Yet the "newspaper of record" in KC barely covers the built environment.

[smh]

They have offices in Crown Center and half a dozen reporters on the restaurant beat. But there has not been an art/architecture critic for decades. Maybe since Donald Hoffman?

Do they still? I feel like with Jill Silva and Joyce Smith gone, I can't think of who is actually writing anything about food. A list of opening and closings really isn't the kind of content I expect on this front. KC Mag is picking up a little of the slack I suppose.

For architecture I really mean the built environment generally. I feel like Collison covered some of this, but not technically a critic or columnist. Still, his business pieces were a must read for me (and CitysceneKC continues to be useful!)

[Highlander]

A very misleading headline from the Star this week.

Kansas City gives Blue Cross tax break to help move downtown, vacate potential Royals site
Read more at: https://www.kansascity.com/news/local/a ... rylink=cpy

The headline and even the article indirectly implies that BCBS received an incentive to move downtown so they could vacate the building to facilitate the Royals at WSP. I seem to remember that BCBS was offered incentives to move even well before vote for the East Crossroads site and Washington Square Park had not even been discussed openly as a potential site for the ballpark.

A couple of quotes from only comment to the article indicates at least some readers see the BCBS deal as part of the Royals deal for WSP

"This is the signal that a decision has been made on the new Royals stadium. Just the start of the cities financial support for the site."

"The spigot on the faucet of KC financial support is now open and will soon be flowing like a flooded river"

[Anthony_Hugo98]

I genuinely want the Star to die at this point. It’s such a garbage paper