Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Wednesday March 25 - Got news or a question?

If you have news or a question, leave it in comments.
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18 comments:

Anonymous said...

If you want to know why The Star is failing take a look at the stories about Marc Conklin's suicide in both The Star and The Kansas City Kansan, a former newspaper with 4 employees that is currently online only.

The headline in The Star reads:

"Indicted BPU official found dead"

Conklin was a young man, and yet no where in Mark Wiebe's story do we find out what Conklin died from. Only in the comments below the story do we actually find out what happened.

Compare that to the Kansan's headine:

"BREAKING: BPU's Conklin commits suicide"

Four employees and the bottom line is that you know more from reading The Kansan than you do from reading The Star (unless you read the rumors below the story).

Great journalism. Throw up a vague bit of nonsense and hope that community gossip fills in the blanks. What a paper. How many more employees does The Star have left than The Kansan?

Anonymous said...

willnotbetelevised.com has updated some of the recent KC Star layoffs.

Anonymous said...

MNI Board in Sactown. My money says the Pru retains job with a pat on da back.

Anonymous said...

The Kansan doesn't have any journalistic integrity or credibility to uphold. If the Kansan's tipster is wrong, no biggee. If the Star prints uncorroborated information as fact and it turns out to be wrong, it's a much bigger problem.

Anonymous said...

Oh but John, we at the KC Star have a strict policy of not informing the public of suicides. We do this as a public service for the good of the whole. Sometimes keeping unfavorable news a secret is a good thing. As the custodians of truth, it is our mandate to only report that which is important.

Trust us. It is for your own good.

Anonymous said...

A blanket policy that doesn't make exceptions for suicides of public figures or for suicides in public places needs to be re-examined. Such a policy seems mindless to me -- or perhaps it's just that the policy isn't quite as simplistic as 9:36 indicated it is.

Anonymous said...

How many times have I seen The Star rationalize its journalistic failures by making reference to its non-existent virtue?

Back when ol' man Glazer was running for mayor against The Star's establishment candidate they ran a story about Glazer's alleged arrest for soliciting.

I say alleged, because there was no record that could be found of the arrest, and even if there was the story admitted that the charges had been dismissed before they even got to court. Yet there was that huge headline and lengthy story trying to say by innuendo what no one had any evidence of.

Or let's take for example the overappraisals in WYCO. That story was covered by the Bonner Springs Chieftain, a part of the Simons' chain. Yet Mark Weibe and The Star have literally fled from that story while trying to mislead people with the notion that because the mill levy went down a miniscule amount that taxes were also going down.

While Wiebe's reasoning for why he didn't doesn't do the story started with he didn't have the time it ultimately morphed into the we're too virtuous to use data not provided by the county.

It's one thing to make excuses, but spare us the crap that The Star has some record of virtue to protect. If it actually did, it wouldn't be in the fix it's in now.

Anonymous said...

John -- it looks like the Kansan's page on the suicide has been 404'd.

Anonymous said...

I don't know what 404'd means. I just went to the site and they have addded quite a bit of material to the original story, and it retains the Suicide headline.

Ironically, I was told yesterday over lunch to look for big news about the BPU today. Supposedly, my luncheon companion had been advised of that last weekend. Perhaps Mr. Conklin has joined Chuck Thompson in the county's list of mysterious deaths following a public scandal.

Anonymous said...

The Star has now updated it's website also to include at least the information that there was a report of a shooting at Conklin's house and that he was the one who was dead when the cops got there. OK, Thank you.

Anonymous said...

Interestingly, there is no comments section under the updated Star story on Conklin hence protecting The Star from the embarrassing revelation that their readers know more than they do.

Anonymous said...

John - 404'd means the page is no longer aavailable on the net. I just tried to get the Kansas City Kansan's story on the suicide and it was gone.

Can you post the link, thanks.

Anonymous said...

http://kansascitykansan.com/

I just updated the site, here's a partial:

"BPU's Conklin commits suicide
Posted by Sam Hartle about 7 hours ago
Tagged in

* Kansas City Board of Public Utilities

UPDATE, 1:05 p.m.: We just received this release from the Kansas City, Kan. Police Department:....."

Anonymous said...

What a laugh!
“If the Star prints uncorroborated information as fact and it turns out to be wrong, it's a much bigger problem.”
----------------
Let’s see, the Scar ducks anything critical about B Hussein O, Zman can’t find Rhonda to ask her about her itty bitty DUI problem, they covered the last election if full BO/BO mode, and you say if they print erroneous info it is a bigger problem. Curious that, how the hell can there be a problem printing puff and fluff? For that matter, how does one correct puff and fluff?

BOBO = Barack Obama/Bend Over

Anonymous said...

Modeso Bee business editor (among MANY other hats he wears) was spotted at the local job fair today. Even he is concerened about his job...but he is a very good reporter. Not too much to report at the job fair as the main vendors were local trade schools and private tech colleges. There was a job fair at the local community college today also earlier in the day and there were about 25 vendors that were actively hiring. This included the Army, Navy and Air Force National park servic and many private companies and big box stores. The Modesto Bee USED to be a sponser along with CarreerBuilders...they were no where to be seen. As a side note, the free resume critique line was out the door! It'll be interesting to see the newspaper article.

Anonymous said...

5:17 PM The KC Star finally acknowledges what the entire city already knew about the death of the indited BPU official. Uses, "S" word in headline....Shamed and Beaten Again.

In further developments BOTTOM LINE IS BACK! With news reports on the Rise Up Scam and unfortunate reports of the Scar's Business Blog getting another phony award. What's unfortunate one might ask? This is the same bunch who knowingly reported false closing prices for their own company's stock for several days running. This of course after being shamed into reporting it at all after it was noted rather extensively that the Star was relishing in the losses of other companies, yet not mentioning their own declines.

Anonymous said...

"Reinvention conventions" are being held at the Fresno Bee, led by a man who happens to be about to most clueless individual, that didn't just crawl out from under a rock. Yes, the future of your Bee is being decided by a man who has absolutely no grasp of what common everyday life is like for someone who doesn't spend all their time at the philharmonic. with no friends outside of the paper, and frankly no friends at the paper, he doesn't know what readers lives are like. Spends his off time running back to Riverside because his wife won't come to the hell hole he moved to.

Anonymous said...

Modesto Bee biz editor spotted at job fair. Hmm. Since the MB lost a biz writer last week perhaps the editor was covering the event? Not too much of a stretch there.