This morning just after 7:30, I got e-mail from a blogger asking me for comment on an item on another blog saying that former Star columnist Rhonda Chriss Lokeman had been arrested on the evening of Jan. 1, 2009 on a DUI charge. There's a story about it now on KansasCity.com.
It was news to me. And as I discovered when I asked editors in the newsroom, nobody there knew about it there either, from the police/justice assistant city editor on up to editor and vice president Mike Fannin. Obviously, they know now. Reporters don't look at daily records of traffic violations and arrests, though anyone can find Missouri court records at Case.net. Cases have to be entered into the system before they're searchable there, obviously. Most media don't find out about traffic stops and arrests of notable people unless someone tips them off. That didn't happen here until this morning.
So do I think should it have been reported even today, asked one blogger who wrote me? Rhonda's a public figure with a very long history at The Star and The Kansas City Times. She started as a reporter in 1981, then joined the editorial board and began writing columns in 1984.
She resigned her position when her husband Mark Zieman became publisher in March of 2008, because company policy doesn't allow spouses to be in the direct line of supervision (and obviously, the publisher is over all employees). The Star carried her now-retired syndicated column from Creators up until Dec. 28 of last year, when the final one ran.
I'd say sure, this story is worth noting, inasmuch as she's a name who's known to readers of The Star.
In this age of transparency and full disclosure, how big of Derek Donovan to admit this story is newsworthy. (Tip for Derek -- the KC Star posted a story on a DUI by D-list celebrity Gary Collins just this morning; subscribers should be informed about a DUI by a 20-year columnist at your paper.) His position has actually evolved over the day. He emailed me at 6:55 AM, saying he hadn't heard of the story, but he told me he doubted it was newsworthy:
"So should the paper report on the arrest of a former staffer and wife of the publisher in principle? I don't really know that it's news, especially if it happened after her employment at the paper and stopping her syndicated column."But I'm not going to beat up on him for adjusting his opinion on whether the story is newsworthy. As more information came out during the day, it became obvious -- even to people wary of transparency -- that this was a story the KC Star should cover.
But the amazing thing is that publisher Mark Zieman -- who had to know the story would become public at some point -- didn't get out in front of it and have his own reporters do a story on the DUI -- before a blogger 1,500 miles away did the story. Zieman's attempt to keep it a secret has embarrassed his readers representative and his entire newspaper.
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18 comments:
Lokeman is the publisher's wife. What does it matter if she works there 'NOW' or not? She sure as hell did. He runs the business! Give me a freakin’ break. He knew the story the day it happened.
Where is his nose for news?
Yikes, forget I asked that.
Mental image bleach needed.
NOW
Derek Donovan must have hated to write his statement. The KC Star has their little talking points, and no one deviates from the drill. He must feel the nepotism reward for an unprofessional scribbler was not fair, or just to honest journalists. Anyone that tries to say she was anything but a scam artist, is beyond help themselves. She is not necessarily a result of affirmative action, she is just of low character, and character tells all sooner or later. Good riddance!
I wonder if someone wrote to her syndication company, if they would say if she is still writing her bogus column? She is so caustic and hateful, I hope she ends her phony writing career. That would be a very good thing.
It sounds like Lokeman was so drunk, she didn't know about the arrest.
Yo, check it out-
it's the Lokeman " I jesh had one teeny drinky, occifer"
www.greatbigstuff.com/martiniglass.html
Donovan translation: I don't know, what do you think?
@ Tony’ Kansas City Link:
FuKCed City captures it all perfectly!!!
http://fukcedcity.com/node/59
See Mark the Snark Z-man’s face on a wine bottle label.
Bhahahahahaha
As a former editorial staffer at The Star, I can virtually guarantee that 99 percent of the newsroom staffers who were forced to participate in the coverup of Lokeman's FU were seething at being put in that position. Most everyone in the newsroom detests her - her arrogance knows no bounds. And her columns sucked. Couldn't have happened to a better person - the story is too funny - one glass of wine at her art studio! Art studio? I'm sure that's where she indulged in all of the wonderful techniques she learned while painting in Monet's gardens. Yes, that's what readers of her columns were forced to read, that and her "girlfriend" parties and other crap. The driving on a rim is too funny.
Clip:
["But we did not cancel it. She stopped writing it."]
Lokeman is probably in rehab folks, sheeee’ll be back. Unless the Z-man leaves town, the witch hovers.
***
@ The Pitch:
The woman directed me to Trudy Hurley, administrative assistant to the editorial page.
"She's not writing it anymore," Hurley told me.
I asked Hurley if Lokeman were to write a column, if the Star would run it.
"Possibly, that would be a decision for the editors to make," Hurley said. "But we did not cancel it. She stopped writing it."
http://blogs.pitch.com/plog/2009/02/the_truth_about_rhonda_chriss.php
Zieman did the wrong thing hiding this news story. He thought it was great to see Gov. Palin's family torn apart. What do you call this, a taste of his own medicine? He is toast all right.
I know another Lokeman folly. Molly Ivins was billed as the liberal writer in hundreds of newspaper as a counter to a conservative writer. When Molly passed, Rhonda was actually chosen, to fill her place in some cities. (I think she was cheaper) We had a piece here that she was fired from one paper, and there were letters of complaints in the others. Zieman knew all this, and he still forced this harridan on the public. The KC Star has made one good step dumping her, now Zieman has to go. I think we will hear that within the next few weeks. You can bet the McClatchy brass doesn’t like press like this now.
"Reporters don't look at daily records of traffic violations and arrests, though anyone can find Missouri court records at Case.net."
~~~~~~~~~
How odd. We did when I worked there.
Wow, that place is full of shady characters. Is that one editor who always worked all coked up before he was promoted still there? Is he still helping his minions dodge the layoff bullet?
It may be the fact that John Shultz (sp), the night crime, or court reporter was canned that they no longer have anyone checking the stat sheets.
As for Donovan, see my comments under the piece on Rhonda's arrest. Oh, and if any of the bigots who commented under that entry are lurking here, church is also important in my life.
Ok, so a write up of the Lokeman debacle appears under a Vendel byline. Vendel writes this morning about a UMB bank that was robbed in the Crossroads Arts District. Vendel fails to mention that the bank that was robbed is across the street from the Star!
My god! It's a cover-up! The Star robbed the bank!
At what point did the Dec.28th column become her last? January 2, 2009?
Anyone who's followed Donovan's blog knows that he has no credibility left. He's made so many false statements that have been posted by reader after reader on his blog and under his columns (and just as promptly deleted) that anyone who's had more than a couple of contacts with him knows that he's a phony whose word means nothing.
Incidentally, I'd rather read Rhonda's stuff that she wrote drunk than I would Lewis Duigiud's stuff written sober.
Indeed, I can't help but wonder if the behavior following the end of her column (assuming it did end before and not after the incident) isn't related. What better way to get even with the husband who ended your career than to do something that might end his.
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