Sunday, March 1, 2009

The incredible shrinking Kansas City Star

The newsstand price of the Kansas City Star went up to 75 cents last fall, but readers are getting less and less for their money. Via Bottom Line Communications:
It may seem to loyal readers as if every week the Kansas City Star continues to shrink in size.

It is not an optical illusion. The newspaper has been getting smaller on a regular basis.


While the McClatchy-owned paper has not reduced its price to subscribers, customers are clearly getting far less for their money than they did even a year ago. Some of the paper's top columnists have been let go and editorial copy has been dramatically reduced in the print edition.


It begs the question: Why subscribe to the newspaper when the Star will provide more (and timely) information online for free? It is the dilemma newspapers are facing today---and they are not handling it very well.


Effective (3/1) the Star is dropping its Sunday Automotive Section due to a decline in advertisers. Along with the section disappearing, Sunday readers will no longer be able to see Tom Strongman's popular "Gallery" column that featured a story of someone restoring a classic car. Beginning March 7 Strongman's column will be shifted to the Saturday automotive section.


While Strongman's column will at least still appear in print (albeit on another day),the popular column titled "How I Got the Job" has also disappeared from the Star's Sunday print edition. It highlighted a local person who explained how he/she landed her current job and what was helpful in the job search.


The column, which provided a real service to job seekers in these tough economic times, was written by Sue Dye Babson. A regular feature on the "CareerBuilder" print section, it can found only on-line now.
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21 comments:

Anonymous said...

Rhonda Zman (aka) The Cruiser Loser

In case liberal can’t understand our contempt for Lokeman, I thought of an especially crude column she wrote about Mitt Romney, in an effort to smear him during the primaries. She wrote this smut because she felt he was a strong candidate against her black chosen one.

She of course knew Obama’s father was a Muslin with more than one wife, a true polygamist. If anyone does not find her reference to the famous Tabernacle Choir singing in pig Latin, as low class as you can get, then I give up on you!
------------
“Mormons need Big Love to explain that not all [Mormons have many wives.]
Someone has to explain that they don't bite the heads off chocolate Easter bunnies during Advent while a [choir sings "The Hallelujah Chorus" in pig Latin.] As the only Mormon in this race, it is up to Romney to set the record straight.”

Anonymous said...

Notice this scathing article is from Bottom Line Communications, and only copied over to McClatchy Watch. Comments?

OK Marxists Sheeple, chime in here. Blast away at us right wingers. Give us your best shot. We’re waiting. Any minute now.

Now be sure to start off with, "The article is wrong because”

Do not start off with, “It’s not fair”, or “Your not fair”. Come on

Anonymous said...

OMG another Lokeman rebuke!

Man, you gots no basis
So then you must be racis

EVERYONE SING IT!

“Roll out the barrel”
“29 bottles of beer on the wall, 29 bottles of beer”

Anonymous said...

Why don't they just drop the entire paper?

We have way too much Seinfeld shrinkage going on here

Anonymous said...

I enjoy Strongman's column, but if what I hear he is paid is accurate (in excess of $1,000 per week to write I think three columns)I have to wonder why they are keeping him around. That could pay the salaries of 1 1/2 regular employees.

Anonymous said...

That is a bargain compared to what they pay that fat racist bastard Jason Whitlock. His paycheck could support 7 real reporters.

Anonymous said...

Somehow I just knew whiteluck was coming into the conversation!

Anonymous said...

Jason Whitlock is the perfect example of affirmative action gone wrong.

Anonymous said...

We need to see that picture again of Jason with the girls of the night, making an obscene gesture. A picture is worth a thousand words, yes it is.

Anonymous said...

The KC Red Star should have shitcanned Lokeman from the start. She was crude, and simply not a journalist of any sort. The fact that Z-man bent the rules to line his pockets is just unethical.

Being a little bit unethical is like being a little bit pregnant. He was dishonest, and that set the slant toward the bottom in motion, without anyone of integrity to halt the decline.

Anonymous said...

The KC Scar stinks and shrinks. Who doesn't get that concept?

Anonymous said...

The KC Red Star is starting a new contest to pick up web traffic. They have announced a Rhonda Lokeman look-alike contest.

The first prize is a tour of the county jail to receive the now famous mug shot of her lowness.

The second prize is a sculpture made of rubber tires to resemble a black star.

The third prize is a glass of white lightening with the lewd one in her very own storefront window.
Enter today and often.

Anonymous said...

Yuck. A Rhonda Lokeman look-alike contest?

I would have to go to the zoo to find something that hideous.

I would probably also find Michelle Obama there. Double Yuck.

Anonymous said...

Bloggers Can't Fill the Gap Left
by Shrinking Press Corps
Washington Post, by Marc Fisher
http://lucianne.com/thread/?artnum=454660

Comment:
The article tries to paint journalists as "the people's representatives", our last hope against the evil lobbyists down the hall, but instead comes across as one more piece in which self-admiring journalists explain to us peasants how terribly important they are and how we can't get along without them

Anonymous said...

Like MNI, they can be as narcissistic as they want. Time is not on their side any more.

The burden has shifted to them to put up, or shut up. And with more drivel like this, they go under.

As with this thread, do you see any lib, MNI, lokeman protesters? No, even they run out of Kool-Aid, or lib steam.

They know their goose is cooked, and have not a clue what to do. As said over and over, they dare not drop the DNC water they carry, so they go away.

Anonymous said...

Oh, Oh, Someone looked behind the curtain.
---------
Excerpt: “I predict that any real socialistic endeavors will be bypassed in favor of pure Marxism-Stalin”

Obama destroying the USA to rebuild it in his own image?
By Sher Zieve

It's amazing to me that so many talking heads who seem befuddled as to what Obama is actually attempting to accomplish with his bound-to-fail stimulus bill cannot seem to see the forest for the trees. To put it another way, they cannot grasp what's actually happening to We-the-People at the hands of the developing 'Obama Emperium.' Shall we take a look at the events leading up to today? By the way, I mean the actual events — [not the lies manufactured by the mainstream media] and other of his sycophants to make the secular messiah Obama 'look good.' I say let's do!
More @
http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/zieve/090220

Anonymous said...

Let me put it this way, at this stage, who cares what MNI does?

Their stock price says they’re through, their massive debt says their through, and the size of their paper, or lack of, says they’re through.

If you were a laid off MNI employee, would you subscribe to their paper? Especially after the affirmative action screw over most of you got? Of course not.

Said another way, if they best they have to offer is some lib ass hat from Davis, CA with a green scarf telling them to dare advertise on the internet, they area through.

I think the discussion moves to what “papers”, whatever that means these days, do after they go away. They forced me onto the web, and now I don’t need them. ‘Oh, but you’ll miss us” Bull!

How could I possibly miss DNC talking points? Sure maybe they let one article of interest through the DNC filter to throw me a bone. Does that help me?

A drop of blue in a sea of green. Am I going to pay, whatever the cost to subscribe to an MNI paper is ($350 per year?) to make me read your BS to glean say a few articles that interest me?

Why should I do that. What should I pay your sorry pseudo elitist lib ass to insult me?

I don't need you. You need me Pal

Anonymous said...

--I don't need you. You need me Pal--

No, they don't. You're not a desirable demographic for advertisers. Move on. Get a life.

Anonymous said...

What’s this?
A Look-A like contest for the classically trained professional journalist with the highest ethical standards.

><(((*> <*)))><

Anonymous said...

No, they don't. You're not a desirable demographic for advertisers. Move on. Get a life.

---
I love comments like this when a business is going under. It's just so reassuring that the end is certain.

Anonymous said...

Arrogance does not pay well.
2:50 PM said:
“No, they don't. [You're not a desirable demographic for advertisers]
Move on. Get a life.”
--------------
“Beggars can’t be choosers”