That would be even more insulting.

It’s known as the KC (red) Star for a reason. Everyone knows their bias. It’s a leftist mouthpiece, and has been for most of its existence.

That’s also a big reason for its slow demise (along with all the other dead tree dinosaurs which only make left turns).

Another is the ostrich management of my former employer was more focused on building a glass palace to store barrels of ink than joining the 21st century, 24/7 digital revolution of the ‘pajamas media’.

Nature abhors a vacuum and so does news.

Strong, smart, and agile trumps big, dumb, and lumbering any day. And avoids glass palaces.

Just ask any dinosaur.

My comment was this: Newspapers (including The Star) are effectively DEAD. So why are you still depending on them? Why are so invested in their opinions or anything they have to say? You can’t trust them. Just like you can’t get any useful information out of local TV news. It’s all junk news – it’s either fluff (USA Today), wrong (The Star), or bias (Fox News).

As for the idea that The Star should be “attacked” until they are “revived” – I think we all know that continued attacking of The Star will only make disappear faster. Lance, once The Star truly disappears, then where will you get your political news? From the internet? Which sites? Blog KC? Tony’s KC? They get most of their stories from The Star!

The death of the newspaper is a sad thing to see, but what will we do without them? What will fill the hole?

If the Star is simply dead on its feet, as ChrisM70 seems to suggest it should be attacked until it revives itself or disappears. I think I tend to agree with stephanie that their actions are purposeful.

By pretending to be objective and informed the Star is committing a fraud upon its readers and everyone else who lives in range of its influence.

You are right that the TV networks don’t have editorial staffs, but they used to give editorial comments (Wayne Godsey, KMBC as an example).

My point is this:

Everyone continues to demand the same services from their local newspaper, but fewer and fewer people are subscribing to the paper. I guess you can get into a “chicken and egg” argument (did the paper get crappy and people left, or did people leave and the paper got crappy?) but the point is that the paper is never going to get better if people don’t support it. Also, the paper won’t get better if The Star keeps cutting staff and giving people inferior journalism.

My guess is that we all know what has happened: The death of The Kansas City Star. It might hang around for a few more years, or maybe longer. But The Star that we depended on for so many years is long gone, and it would be a good idea for everyone to STOP expecting the quality and substance you relied on in the past. The Star has cut around 20% of its staff and outsources jobs – why would you expect anything BUT incompetence from short-staffed and overworked employees? It’s dead.

But, with The Star gone, who do we turn to? The Pitch?
There is no good alternative. Even with 400 TV channels and endless websites and instant information on your phone, it doesn’t help since no one has the resources and staff to do investigations and/or real journalism, so therefore we get junk news.

The Star and the rest of the newspaper industry might have had this coming to them, but I’m afraid we will all suffer, and so will our democracy.

The Star didn’t interview one single state rep candidate, they almost never do. They make their endorsements based on a whim. They endorsed several challengers who also did not turn in surveys when the incument did. Absolutely pathetic.

Can you really blame the people for complaining about the paper not giving them what they want? Isn’t that the definition of a free market? The Star’s subscription numbers are falling and that’s the people’s fault? I fail to understand that logic.

I think the original point of this post is that the Star presents itself as the last bastion of journalistic integrity but then the editorial board goes off and makes a tainted endorsement by refusing to meet with one of the candidates. There’s some irony in that glass house downtown.