 | |
 The May 2, 2011, front page ofThe Kansas City Star, with headline reporting thekilling of Osama bin Laden | |
| Type | Daily newspaper |
|---|---|
| Format | Broadsheet |
| Owner | McClatchy |
| Editor | Andale Gross[1] |
| Founded | 1880; 145 years ago (1880) |
| Headquarters | 1601 McGee Kansas City, MO 64108 USA 39°5′34″N94°34′51″W / 39.09278°N 94.58083°W /39.09278; -94.58083 |
| Circulation | 89,175 Daily 109,438 Sunday (as of 2020).[2] |
| ISSN | 0745-1067 |
| OCLC number | 3555868 |
| Website | kansascity |
The Kansas City Star is a newspaper based inKansas City, Missouri. Published since 1880, the paper is the recipient of eightPulitzer Prizes.
The Star is most notable for its influence on the career of PresidentHarry S. Truman and as the newspaper where a youngErnest Hemingway honed his writing style.[3] The paper is the major newspaper of theKansas City metropolitan area and has widespread circulation in westernMissouri and easternKansas.
The paper, originally calledThe Kansas City Evening Star, was founded September 18, 1880, byWilliam Rockhill Nelson andSamuel E. Morss.[4] The two moved to Missouri after selling the newspaper that became theFort Wayne News Sentinel (and earlier owned by Nelson's father) in Nelson'sIndiana hometown, where Nelson was campaign manager in the unsuccessful presidential run ofSamuel Tilden.
Morss quit the newspaper business within a year and a half because of ill health.At the time there were three daily competitors – theEvening Mail; TheKansas City Times; and theKansas City Journal.
CompetitorTimes editorEugene Field wrote this about the new newspaper:
Nelson's business strategy called for cheap advance subscriptions and an intention to be "absolutely independent in politics, aiming to deal by all men and all parties with impartiality and fearlessness.".[5]
He purchased theKansas City Evening Mail (and itsAssociated Press evening franchise) in 1882. The paper name was changed toThe Kansas City Star in 1885. Nelson started theWeekly Kansas City Star in 1890 and theSunday Kansas City Star in 1894.[5] In 1901 Nelson also bought the morning paperTheKansas City Times (and its morning Associated Press franchise). Nelson announced the arrival of the "24 HourStar."
In August 1902, future presidentHarry S. Truman worked in the mailroom for two weeks, making $7.00 the first week and $5.40 the second. In 1950, then-president Truman half joked in an unmailed letter toStar editor Roy Roberts, "If theStar is at all mentioned in history, it will be because the President of the U.S. worked there for a few weeks in 1901 [sic]."[6]
The paper was first printed on the second story of a three-story building at 407–409 Delaware. In 1881, it moved 14 W. 5th Street. In 1882, it moved to 115 W. 6th. In 1889, it moved to 804–806 Wyandotte. Sometime between 1896 and 1907, it was located at 1025–1031 Grand.[7] In 1911, it moved into itsJarvis Hunt-designed building at 18th and Grand.[8]
Nelson died in 1915. Nelson provided in his will that his newspaper was to support his wife and daughter and then be sold.
Ernest Hemingway was a reporter for theStar from October 1917 to April 1918. Hemingway creditedStar editor C.G. "Pete" Wellington with changing a wordy high-schooler's writing style into clear, provocative English. Throughout his lifetime, Hemingway referred to this admonition fromThe Star Copy Style,[9] the paper's famous and often usedstyle guide:
Use short sentences. Use short first paragraphs. Use vigorous English. Be positive, not negative.
Nelson's wife died in 1921; his daughter Laura Kirkwood died in aBaltimore hotel room in 1926 at the age of 43.[10]
Laura's husband Irwin Kirkwood, who was editor of the paper, led the employee purchase. Kirkwood in turn died of a heart attack in 1927 inSaratoga Springs,New York, where he had gone to sell thoroughbred horses. Stock in the company was then distributed among other employees.
Virtually all proceeds from the sale and remains of Nelson's $6 million personal fortune were donated to create theNelson-Atkins Museum of Art on the site of Nelson's home, Oak Hall. Both papers were purchased by the employees in 1926 following the death of Nelson's daughter.
TheStar enjoyed a pivotal role in American politics beginning in the late 1920s when Iowa-nativeHerbert Hoover was nominated at the 1928 Republican convention in Kansas City and continuing through 1960 at the conclusion of the presidency of Kansas favoriteDwight D. Eisenhower.
EditorRoy A. Roberts (1887–1967) was to make the newspaper a major force in Kansas politics. Roberts joined the paper in 1909 and was picked by Nelson for the Washington bureau in 1915. Roberts became managing editor in 1928. He was instrumental in pushing Kansas GovernorAlf Landon for the Republican nomination in 1936; Landon was defeated in the general election byFranklin D. Roosevelt.[11]
In 1942, theJournal, the last daily competitor, ceased publication. TheJournal had offered unwavering support ofTom Pendergast's political machine; once Pendergast had fallen from power, the paper suffered.[12]
In 1945, the paper bought the Flambeau Paper Mill inPark Falls, Wisconsin to provide newsprint. The mill had labor problems and would eventually be cited for pollution problems, and the Star eventually divested itself of the mill in 1971.[13]
Roberts was elevated to president of theStar in 1947. TheStar was not particularly kind to hometownDemocratHarry Truman, who had been backed by famed big city Democratic machine bossTom Pendergast. In 1953, the Truman administration in its closing days filed antitrust charges against theStar over its ownership ofWDAF-TV. The Star launched radio stationWDAF on May 16, 1922, and television outlet WDAF-TV on October 19, 1949. TheStar lost its case and had to sign a consent decree in 1957 that led to the sale of the broadcast stations.
With the influence of theStar in Truman's hometown, the newspaper and Roberts were the subject of an April 12, 1948, cover issue ofTime magazine.
In 1954, Topeka correspondent Alvin McCoy won a Pulitzer Prize for a series of articles questioning the business dealings of the Republican national chairman. Roberts reported the Pulitzer Prize in a four-paragraph item.
Roberts semi-retired in 1963, officially retired in 1965, and died in 1967.[14]
Employee ownership of theTimes andStar ended in 1977 with their purchase byCapital Cities Communications.[15] In 1990, theStar became a morning newspaper, taking the place of what was then the largerKansas City Times, which ceased publication. TheWalt Disney Company acquired Capital Cities/ABC in January 1996. Disney sold the paper toKnight Ridder in May 1997 as Disney moved to concentrate on broadcast rather than newspaper investments. Under Capital Cities ownership, the newspaper won three Pulitzer Prizes (1982,1982,1992).[citation needed]
Knight Ridder's legacy is a massive $199 million, two-block long, glass-enclosed printing and distribution plant on the northeast side of theStar's landmark red brick headquarters at 1729 Grand Avenue (now Boulevard). The plant began printing in June 2006. It took nearly four years to build and is considered a major part of the effort to revitalize downtown Kansas City. The plant contains four 60-foot-high presses. On June 4, 2006, the first edition of theStar came out from the new presses with a major redesign in the sections and the logo. The new paper design involved shrinking itsbroadsheet width from 15 to 12 inches and shrinking the length from 223⁄4 to 211⁄2 inches. Other broadsheet newspapers across the country, including theWall Street Journal, are moving to the smaller standard size.[citation needed]
The McClatchy Company boughtKnight Ridder in June 2006.
In 2017, theStar sold its historic headquarters building at 1729 Grand Boulevard and moved its offices across McGee Street to its pressroom building.[16] TheStar then sold the pressroom building in 2019 and leased it back for 30 years.[17]
In February 2020, McClatchy filed for bankruptcy and Chatham Asset Management LLC bought it at auction.[18]
On November 10, 2020, theStar reported, "Printing of The Star will move up Interstate 35 tothe Des Moines Register".[19]
On December 21, 2020, the paper issued an apology for a history of racism in its news coverage.[20] A column by Mike Fannin, president and editor, said "For 140 years, it has been one of the most influential forces in shaping Kansas City and the region. And yet for much of its early history—through sins of both commission and omission—it disenfranchised, ignored and scorned generations of Black Kansas Citians. It reinforcedJim Crow laws and redlining. Decade after early decade it robbed an entire community of opportunity, dignity, justice and recognition." His column launched a six-part series in which the paper promised to deeply examine past coverage by the paper and its former sister paper theKansas City Times, in coverage he described as routinely sickening the reporters who worked on the story.[21]
The newspaper has won eightPulitzer Prizes:
The newspaper has been a finalist for Pulitzers on three occasions:
In 2018, the paper received two awards at theScripps Howard Foundation'sNational Journalism Awards. The paper itself won in the First Amendment category for its 2017 feature "Why so secret, Kansas?," on the topic of official state agency resistance to the release of public records,[24] while columnist Melinda Henneberger won in the Opinion category.[25]
