By DAVID MARTIN
Monday's Kansas City Star did a bad thing. It gave a newsmaker a prominent platform in the same issue he dodged questions from one of the paper's writers.
Tim Golba, the former president of Kansans for Life, is now championing the direct elections of judges in Johnson County. Golba (pictured) says partisan elections will lead to better, more open government. But his history crusading against abortion rights suggests that he's mostly interested in putting Phill Kline and his ilk on the bench. As I pointed out in a recent column, Golba's group, Kansans for Judicial Review, betrays a socially conservative outlook by noting the A+ grades a "gay rights website" gave some Kansas Supreme Court justices.
On Monday, the Star published a Mike Hendricks column along the lines of what I had written, that Golba and others pushing for elections were really motivated by abortion and porn.
Golba did not return Hendricks' calls. So Hendricks directed readers to the "As I See It" column that Golba had written for that day's editorial page.
I don't fault Hendricks for mentioning the "As I See It" piece. But as an institution, the Star on Monday essentially told public figures that it was OK to blow off reporters, because the paper was willing to provide scrutiny-free space in another part of the paper.
It wasn't the Star's intention to reward Golba's bad behavior. Miriam Pepper, The Star's editorial page editor, writes in an e-mail that Golba's "As I See It" was "in the works well before it appeared." The Metro desk (Hendricks' habitat) and the editorial page are different operations, Pepper continues, "so Hendricks doesn't see our pages in advance and he doesn't let us know what he's writing about."
Fair enough. But in the future, the Star's various editorial divisions may want to think about constructing a database of those who ignore reporters' requests for comment. Future "As I See It" submissions can then be checked against the "Does Not Talk" list.
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You forget it is all infotainment. All the news that fits.
The Star never tackles the truly tough questions like is your dog getting enough cheese.
You forget it is all infotainment. All the news that fits.
The Star never tackles the truly tough questions like is your dog getting enough cheese.
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