'Bloody Monday at Kansas City Star'

My second week on the job, I landed a Sunday centerpiece story hanging out with an oft-arrested cornerback on house arrest. Getting the access was easy. Writing a Sunday centerpiece for Mike Fannin was not. The Sunday section was his baby. You had to fight just to land a spot in the first three pages of it. And when I turned in that story on a Saturday afternoon, and spent 4 ½ hours in his office, I knew I had a long way to go before I could be considered a Kansas City Star sportswriter. The talent he amassed in those days was amazing. Working alongside guys like Wright, Jeff Passan, Jason Whitlock, Joe Posnanski, Jason King and so many others made me feel completely inadequate, and made everyone around them try harder to share the same pages with them.
Fannin used to call me Triple-AAA, because I came from Omaha, the minor league-team. But he always wanted us to think that The Kansas City Star was a big-market team that could do anything. Yeah, he’s brutally honest, and I probably needed therapy while I was there. But the one thing I know is that he loves that paper. And that this is killing him.

 

It is impossible for me to imagine working for a better man than Mike Fannin. I'm thrilled that it might now be a cliche to come on this thread and back the man who gave me my first job out of college, and who once told me the best thing he could say about a story was, "it's written in English."

This process is tearing him up inside, and anybody who thinks otherwise has never met the man.

The fact that he'll be around next week and the week after to help us continue to put out the best product we can is my greatest source of optimism on what is otherwise a terrible day that has me sick to my stomach.

 

Best of luck to everyone at the Star. It's my hometown paper and has a sports section I'd put up against any in the business.

 

The Warfield story, yes? Not that you need me to tell you, but it was a great read.

 

Any names yet?

Hopefully sports didn't get beat up too badly.

 

from bottomlinecom.com. Not nearly a full list yet.

They are also closing the Olathe News, folding it into the Star.

Eric Palmer, Deputy Business Editor
DeAnn Smith, Investigative Reporter
Rick Alm, Gambling & Tourism Reporter
David Hayes, Technology/Internet Reporter
Malcom Garcia, Reporter
Don Allmon, IT
Greg Peters, Photo Desk
Jim Pedley, Motor Sports Writer
John Mark Eberhart, Books Editor

 

Olathe News was a decent suburban daily who did a good job with high school sports. Sucks to hear of it's demise. Olathe will suffer, and I'm guessing they won't gripe so much about how that paper favors the other schools in the district over their child's.

 

Every one of these names has a story. DeAnn sat near the back of the newsroom, to your right if you were coming in the backdoor, her desk buried in a canyon of notebooks and documents. She was hired by The Star from Baton Rouge after winning a bunch of investigative awards. Malcom Garcia went to the most dangerous places in the world. He was shot at for The Kansas City Star. Don Allmon fixed laptops and always seemed to be there when you needed him. And Jim Pedley ...

He loved the section. He took pride in every award, including those he did not win. He drank Chivas. He sat in front of the sports editor's office, to the right of Jennifer's desk, the sides of his keyboard dotted with NASCAR and IRL media guides. He knew everyone in the auto world and would use his good name as currency for colleagues. Not every does that. He sent notes when he liked a story, always opened his Rolodex if you needed a number. He had a nice car and took great care of it. He loved Wisconsin.

 

I've known Pedley for years... Great fucking guy.

 

That may sum up the suck-ass nature of what's happening better than anything I've read so far.

 

Jim Pedley is a guy who stood up, time after time, for his shop and for his craft. He told me hundreds of times how proud he was to work at the Star. He took great pride in the success of his newspaper and his sports section. I have never seen him do one thing, personally or professionally, in which he did not conduct himself both as a gentleman and as a professional. He never took himself too seriously, but he never showed anything but respect for the work and for the people he worked with.
Pedley is the kind of guy newspapers ought to be begging to stay in the business. The idea that his newspaper doesn't understand that is an indictment on that company and the people who run in -- and in a larger way the industry we all have put so much of our lives and our hearts into.

 

Me and Poole wholeheartedly agreeing on the same thing. Dogs and cats, living together ...
Well said, David, and 100 percent true.
Good luck to Jim and the rest hit by the cutbacks at the Star