The year 2003 may fade away, but the echo of readers’ voices continues. And more than any other complaint (excluding differences of opinion over the comics and weather pages) are comments about The Star’s coverage of the war on terror.
The primary theme of calls and letters is this: Why does The Star bury important news about the war in the back of the A-section?
Newspapers always organize their contents. The Star does it this way: The front page (the most important news of the day, and a mix of local, national and international), Nation Watch (domestic coverage) and World Watch (international news).
War stories deemed most important of the day appear out front. Two interior sections also focus on the war: “War on Terror” and “Rebuilding Iraq.” They appear after Nation Watch because they feature international news. Sometimes it’s near the back of the section, sometimes in the middle, depending on how many pages there are.
According to Managing Editor/News Steve Shirk, The Star presents news this way for ease of use. “We want to avoid disrupting that packaging for the reader, and at the same time, give war on terrorism news some kind of anchor position.”
Shirk said packaging Iraq stories together near the World section is not meant to diminish the importance of that news. “We consider the entire A-section to be high-profile real estate for the news,” he said.
Was The Star too late?
Chris Herrmann of Kansas City, Kan., wanted to know why The Star waited to publish a story quoting Thomas Kean, the head of an independent panel investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington. Kean, who is a Republican, linked a number of governmental agency “mistakes” to the attack (but did not point fingers at President Bush) in a CBS interview.
Writes Herrmann: “It is inexplicable to me why this story has not gotten the front page coverage it deserves{hellip}”The Star published a story Dec. 20, three days after Kean made his original statements. That story ran on page A-17 in its war on terror section. I agree with the reader. The Star was late in running the story. There are too many Americans whose lives have been personally touched by this tragedy. The Star should have run the story at least a day earlier.
Here’s what happened: The CBS interview aired Wednesday, Dec. 17. On Thursday, Kean gave subsequent interviews clarifying what he said on CBS. The Associated Press moved a story late Thursday – a little late for The Star’s state edition but not too late to get in the Johnson County or the Metropolitan edition.
Kean’s statements aren’t new – we’ve heard this criticism against the government before. But Kean saying so – as head of the investigation – made it news. Since then, The Star has run an editorial and a follow-up story on Kean’s statements.
The Star’s Web site, KansasCity.com, did have this story during its day cycle on Thursday. The full report of the Sept. 11 investigation is due in May 2004.
The Clemons tapes
A Kansas City reader asked The Star to clarify how the media got the recorded tapes of Ricky Clemons’ jailhouse conversations. Were they leaked? Stolen? Just how were they obtained?
The Columbia Daily Tribune, a small afternoon paper in the University of Missouri’s hometown, was the first to get the tapes. The Tribune, like other papers – including The Kansas City Star and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch – filed an open records request with the state for any taped telephone conversations with Clemons, a former MU basketball player. Meanwhile, the FBI seized the recordings. The Tribune was the first to refile after the FBI concluded it was no longer interested in the tapes.
Tribune reporter Nate Carlisle, who broke the story, said in a telephone interview that he wishes he had a sensational story to tell, such as a source on the inside who leaked him the information.
“All I did was to file an open records request,” he said. “It wouldn’t be incorrect to say this was a fishing expedition.”
Carlisle said he didn’t know what he would find on the tapes. “I didn’t know who (Clemons) was talking to{hellip}”
The tapes were then obtained by other newspapers and media companies, who did their own stories. One criticism: Stories failed to explain just how this information was made available, and, for lack of another explanation, it sounds like officials leaked the tapes.
Carlisle said that’s not true, and I believe him. He’d have a much better story to tell, otherwise.
