Kansas City, a vibrant metropolis nestled on the border of Kansas and Missouri, boasts a rich history and a thriving community. At the heart of this bustling city's information ecosystem lies its newspapers. These print and digital publications are the storytellers of the heartland, chronicling the daily events, issues, and stories that shape the lives of Kansas City's residents.
From its inception to its current form, the newspaper industry in Kansas City has played a pivotal role in informing, educating, and engaging the local populace. In this article, you will learn about different good newspapers available in Kansas City andwhat Kansas newspaper was raided by police. Kansas City is home to several newspapers that serve the diverse needs and interests of its residents. Some of the notable newspapers in the Kansas City area include:
A newspaper published in Kansas City, Missouri, is called The Kansas City Star. The newspaper, which has been published since 1880, has won eight Pulitzer Prizes. The Star is best known for having shaped President Harry S. Truman's career and for being the publication where a teenage Ernest Hemingway refined his writing technique. The daily is widely distributed across western Missouri and eastern Kansas and is the foremost publication in the Kansas City metropolitan region.
William Rockhill Nelson and Samuel E. Morss started the newspaper on September 18, 1880, under the name The Kansas City Evening Star, after selling the Fort Wayne News Sentinel, which had previously been owned by Nelson's father, in his birthplace of Indiana, where Nelson served as campaign manager for Samuel Tilden's failed presidential bid, the two relocated to Missouri.
The newspaper took home two prizes at the 2018 Scripps Howard Foundation National Journalism Awards. For its 2017 story "Why so secret, Kansas?," which addressed official state agency opposition to the release of public documents, the paper itself won in the First Amendment category, while writer Melinda Henneberger took home the prize in the Opinion area.
From 1854 to 1942, the Kansas City Journal Post served as the city's newspaper in Kansas City, Missouri. At the time of its closure, it was the city's oldest newspaper. On September 23, 1854, one year after the city was founded and not long after The Public Ledger closed, it began as a weekly publication called The Kansas City Enterprise.
Northrup and Chick, the city's largest store and first bank, contributed $1,000 to establish it, as did future mayors Milton J. Payne and E. Milton McGee, as well as city fathers William Gillis, Benoist Troost, Thompson McDaniel, and Robert Campbell. David K. Abeel served as its initial publisher, and William A. Strong as its editor. It was located in the River Market district, above a bar at the intersection of Main Street and the Missouri River.
Distributed across the Kansas City Metropolitan Area, which includes Lawrence and Topeka, Kansas, The Pitch is a free alternative newspaper. Although it is well-known for its in-depth pieces on the local administration, it also covers news about local restaurants, concerts, visual art, sports, and events. It began as the Penny Pitch, a monthly giveaway at the Penny Lane Record Shop in Kansas City's Westport neighborhood, in July 1980.
Jay Mandeville and Dwight Frizzell were the first editors. The Pitch was purchased by Village Voice Media in 1999, and SouthComm Communications purchased the publication in 2011. The Pitch was sold to Stephanie and Adam Carey in 2017. The Association of Alternative Newsweeklies counts The Pitch among its members.
Kansas City Times Newspaper From 1867 to 1990, the Kansas City Times, a morning newspaper, was published in Kansas City, Missouri. When it changed its name to The Star, the morning Kansas City Times—which was owned by the afternoon Kansas City Star—became more significant and was the recipient of two Pulitzer Prizes. In 1982, The Times was awarded its lone Pulitzer Prize.
For his coverage of the collapse of the Hyatt Regency walkway, The Times and The Star split a prize for "Local General or Spot New Reporting." At the same time, Rick Atkinson was named the winner of the "National Reporting" category.
City of Kansas Chester A. Franklin launched The Call, an African-American weekly newspaper, in Kansas City, Missouri, in 1919. It still provides services to Kansas City, Kansas, as well as Kansas City, Missouri, black communities. There were no black-owned or run publications before 1827 when the African-American Daily Freedom's Journal was established in New York City.
White journalists seldom reported news from their neighborhood, and the mainstream media openly displayed prejudice toward African Americans. As a result, there needed to be more communication inside and between the groups. Due to funding challenges, black periodicals have had a tough time surviving. Blacks in the North were neglected by Southern newspapers because, up until the Great Migrations of the 20th century, the bulk of black people lived in the South.
The African-American community in Kansas City, Missouri, was served by The Kansas City Sun, a newspaper. It was published weekly from 1908 to 1924. Together with Chester Arthur Franklin's The Call and William T. Washington's rival publication The Rising Son, The Sun was one of the city's three weekly publications catering to the Black population in the early 20th century. During their ten-year ownership, Nelson C. Crews (1866-1923), who bought the newspaper in 1911, utilized its editorials to further their causes as community champions.
The Sun and Rising Son had the most competition of the two weeklies until Crews acquired it in 1914 as the Son's power waned. During a Missouri House of Representatives hearing, Crews and Charleton H. Tandy, from the St. Louis Palladium newspaper, provided testimony on a measure that mandates the "separation of the races" on public transit. Crews fought for the establishment of an African-American-staffed hospital in Kansas City to provide healthcare to the segregated African-American population.
Public-interest journalism is the primary emphasis of the nonprofit online news source The Beacon, which is located in the Kansas City metropolitan region. It is the only regional nonprofit news organization in Kansas City that isn't a public radio or television station. Local Independent Online News (LION) Publishers awarded The Beacon the 2020 "Emerging Publisher" award. Additionally, it was honored with the Institute for Nonprofit News' 2021 "Community Champion" award.
The Beacon opened The Wichita Beacon, a second local newsroom in Wichita, Kansas, in 2021 as part of its expansion into a regional news network that went beyond Kansas City. Funding from the American Journalism Project and a $1.1 million donation from the Wichita Community Foundation helped to propel the newsroom's growth into a regional news network.
Serving Kansas City and the surrounding areas in Wyandotte County, Kansas, in the United States, is an online newspaper called The Kansas City Kansan. When Kansas City, Kansas, lacked a daily newspaper and Kansas City, Missouri, a neighbor, had three dailies (the Kansas City Journal-Post, Kansas City Times, and Kansas City Star), Arthur Capper founded the publication on January 31, 1921. At its height in the 1960s, the paid circulation exceeded 34,000 copies per day. In addition, it ran KCKN radio from 1936 to 1957.
Every day, excluding Sundays, Mondays, and significant holidays, was published. The paper changed from being published daily to twice weekly at the conclusion of its print run. The Kansan has only been available online since January 10, 2009. Nick Sloan, a citizen of Kansas City, acquired the Kansan on September 19, 2009, and is now the publication's independent owner.
A search warrant document reveals that a reporter for the Marion County Record obtained material that was readily available to the public by using an online state database. Court documents showed that extraordinary law enforcement raids on a Kansas newspaper office and the publisher's residence were initiated by a journalist's ostensibly normal inquiry for public materials.
According to court papers made public by the paper's attorney, Bernie Rhodes, the search of the Marion County Record's offices was predicated on the police chief's expressed suspicion that one of its reporters had committed identity theft by gaining access to a restaurant owner's driving records. The paper's publisher, Eric Meyer, newsroom head Gideon Cody, and city council member Ruth Herbel all had affidavits supporting raids on their homes stating that "downloading the document involved either impersonating the victim or lying about the reasons why the record was being sought."
On Monday, the central Kansas police chief who oversaw the August raid on a tiny weekly newspaper announced his resignation.
First Amendment supporters have denounced the raid on The Marion County Record newspaper.
In the town of Leavenworth, the Kansas Weekly Herald was first published on September 15, 1854. Along with the town's first residents, it was the first newspaper published in the Kansas Territory.
The newspapers of Kansas City, despite their diverse backgrounds and coverage areas, are a vital part of the city's information ecosystem. Notably, they have not been immune to the challenges and controversies that can sometimes affect the media industry, such as the incident in what Kansas newspaper was raided by police, highlighting the crucial role they play in upholding the principles of press freedom and the public's right to know.
From the Kansas City Star's long history of comprehensive reporting to specialized publications catering to specific communities and interests, these newspapers continue to serve as trusted sources of information, connecting residents to their local and global surroundings.