Wednesday, September 23, 2009

New Kansas City publisher not impressed with "competing news source"

Nick Sloan, the new publisher of the "Kansas City Kansan" online newspaper, had an encounter with a reporter from a competing news source, and he wasn't exactly impressed.


... BY THE WAY, here's a true story: A 20 minute talk with a reporter at a "competing news source" gave me the most convincing argument to do what I'm doing. While I was convinced, this conversion made me more convinced than ever that I was doing the right thing for me and the future. Strange, eh?...


Any guesses about the identity of the competing news source??
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8 comments:

John Altevogt said...

It is not hard to compete with The Star. Even when they had a bureau in Wyandotte County and The Kansan was still a struggling newspaper with few resources, The Kansan was able to kick The Star's journalistic rear end from one end of the county to the other.

This was after Rick Alm was transferred out by Art Brisbane and Jim Fitzpatrick was sent in to castrate the bureau. The Star then went into an era of happy chat in support of Carol Marinovich, a puppet of the KCMO/Johnson County interests.

Before Marinovich came to power the houses in WYCO were appraised at 22-44% below actual value. Nowadays they're appraised at 120-190% of actual value despite the fact that property values went up dramatically until a couple of years ago.

Despite that fact, The Star kept writing that property taxes were going down in Wyandotte County. However, Roy Teicher at The Kansan simply let his reporters write about what they saw in front of them and kicked The Star's ass. They scooped them on stories left and right with virtually no resources, earning Marinovich's enmity. She promised to "bury The Kansan" and has pretty well succeeded. Nick is what remains, and I wish him well. He has much to be proud of , unlike The Star.

In essence, it's not hard to compete with someone who has abdicated all responsibility for honest journalism. Good Luck Nick.

Anonymous said...

But then neither is John Stossell

Going to Fox II (Townhall.com) John Stossell

When I announced last week that I was leaving ABC for Fox, some readers complained about my "bias." I replied: "Every reporter has political beliefs.

The difference is that I am upfront about mine."

Look at today's burning issue: President Obama's pledge to redesign 15 percent of the economy.

Virtually every reporter calls his health care plan "reform." But dictionaries define reform as "improvement."

So before they present any evidence, reporters pronounce Obama's plan an improvement. Isn't that bias?

The New York Times took its bias to an absurd length. Its page-one story on the big anti-big-government rally in Washington, D.C., referred to "protests that began with an opposition to health care. ..."

Apparently, in the Times reporter's and editors' view, opponents of the Obama health care plan oppose health care itself. (The online article was later changed.

Economic-policy reporters usually present the views of supporters of new regulations as objective and public-spirited. For a contrary view, at best they'll ask a Republican or a representative of the regulated business, who is portrayed as self-serving. (Republicans tend to offer a watered-down version of the Democrats' proposals.)

A recent Bloomberg report on President Obama's plans to rewrite financial regulations is typical:

"Obama has proposed new regulations overseeing the systemic risk posed by large financial institutions."

The reporter quoted White House economic adviser Lawrence Summers in support of the plan. Although there are plenty of reasons to doubt that regulators are competent at judging systemic risk, no skeptical economist was quoted.

Readers are led to believe the program is perfectly feasible.

Most reporting on the "stimulus" package has the same flaw. Just to call it "stimulus" is to editorialize, since the idea that government spending can truly stimulate an economy is at best doubtful.

Many good economists say it can't be done. After all, the money is taken from somewhere else. But the economists rarely are quoted.

Anonymous said...

...Carol Marinovich, a puppet of the KCMO/Johnson County interests...

whose election ousted the good-old-boy network of crooks who had run Kansas City, Kansas, for decades, and under whose administration the city reversed decades of decline

Anonymous said...

A cub reporter with a camera phone would surpass the remaining KC Red Star journalists. Of course, that would be if the public school system had not mushed-up their brain already.

Anonymous said...

whose election ousted the good-old-boy network of crooks who had run Kansas City, Kansas, for decades, and under whose administration the city reversed decades of decline

===============

That is ridiculous. Nothing has been reversed. KCK is still a shit hole and the people who she brought to power are the very same bunch they had before minus one or two key people.

If anything, KCK is now worse off than ever.

John Altevogt said...

As the former head of the Wyandotte County Republican Party I can tell you that I would gladly assist the Democrat old guard if they would agree to campaign under the slogan "we never stole this much".

Marinovich and her crew brought the KCMO/JOCO edifice complex model of corrupt government to WYCO. She was petty and vindictive and in spite of The Star's constant pimping for her barely managed to get re-elected against a very week candidate and then refused to even try the second time around.

Under consolidation KCK has transferred much of their tax burden to the county (i.e. the western suburbs) and we have gone from being under appraised prior to consolidation to being dramatically over appraised afterward.

A house in the inner city is currently appraised at 191% of actual sales value compared with million dollar plus properties in Johnson County's fancy Leawood being appraised at under 68% of actual sales value. That's a 280% difference holding mill levies constant, and the mill levies are not equal by a long shot.

The scandals never went away, it's just that Jim Fitzpatrick (under Art Brisbane's direction) ran one of the most castrated, corruption friendly bureaus anywhere in America.

Indeed, today our taxes are almost triple what they were when we moved to the county in 1996. So much for Carol Marinovich and our silly Unified Government.

Anonymous said...

...we have gone from being under appraised prior to consolidation to being dramatically over appraised afterward...

And I'm sure that John, non-corrupt citizen that he is, constantly complained about being under appraised and how unfair that was for those who had to make up the revenue lost by him being underappraised.

John Altevogt said...

7:58 Congratulations, that is the stupidest post I've read since I've been on here. As usual, not one comment to refute any substantive point made, only a retort so silly and ridiculous that it's simply beyond belief that anyone with a brain would even make it. Good Lord, you're stupid.