FEATURE
or a samurai sword. And I think I would prefer to face the guillotine or be tossed into a fiery barbecue pit than have to eat again at Backfire BBQ. (from Charles Ferruzza’s “The high-concept Backfire BBQ sputters out of the gate,” October 21, 2010) C.J. Janovy: I think the work of Justin Kendall was hugely influential. He wrote about the Phelps family and the Kansas State School Board debating evolution and intelligent design. He started the blog that kept track of every homicide in Kansas City [“Killa City”]. It really started a conversation in communities that we had not heard from before, and you could see it in the comments on the block. And it was not just documenting a face of someone who got killed, but what the street looked like. Kendrick Blackwood, staff writer, 2003–08: Thinking back, I take a lot of pride in the variety of stories I did and the fact that they came from the breadth of the Metro area—cattle rustlers in Johnson County, a transgender widow’s lawsuit, prison gangs in Leavenworth, a death row inmate in Jefferson City, along with a couple stories out of fascinating Independence. A personal favorite was about a party that turned violent and highlighted the ongoing violence in the lives of immigrants and refugees from Sudan and Somalia. The two very different communities were merged by government resettlement in a common neighborhood—the Old Northeast. It opened my eyes to what Kansas City’s connection to the world and the awesomeness that can be found in a truly diverse neighborhood. Joe Miller: I also really saw how the whole system is geared up against African Americans and Latinos. The one that really hits me is there’s a story that I did about Wesley Fields. He was an attorney running for city council, and it was a legit story about him, but it didn’t stop. It may have gone too far. I learned that it was so much easier to dig stuff
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THE PITCH | July 2020 | thepitchkc.com
up on an African American than a white candidate. Nadia Pflaum: You know, people are always quick to talk shit about The Pitch. But I think if it had gone away, I think it would have been missed, and it’s not replaceable. People might not have always agreed with the way that they themselves or their favorite institutions were written about, but they read the pieces. They might disagree fervently, of course. But there are a lot of people and places, a lot of institutions, and a lot of bars and restaurants and bands that come and go. It’s the only place where there’s a record of that restaurant, or this show at the Record Bar, or this weird underground secret show somewhere in Lawrence. C.J. Janovy: We would do a story exposing some sort of abuse of power or corruption, and nothing would change. And that can get really frustrating for journalists and it can make you feel like there’s no point. But you love those stories in addition to all the stories about what makes life fun and worth living. And over the course of 40 years, you’ve documented the life of the city. By the mid-2000s, the industry was in trouble. A long-running financial strain resulting from the advent of the internet and revenue-draining sites like Craigslist had already put enormous pressure on newsrooms. That crisis was further fueled by the 2008 financial collapse, which ruined many publications. The Pitch was not immune from decisions made far from Kansas City. Tony Ortega: Even then [in 2005], we were trying to do a lot with very little as far as resources. We had no idea how good we had it. Joe Miller: New Times hooked up with a venture capitalist from, I guess, some time in the mid-2000s, to buy The Village Voice and got a huge investment in capital right when
The sign outside the old Main Street Pitch building, which is now home to Tom’s Town.
the market started crashing. So [in the midst of the crash] it suddenly became, you know, much more austere there. Money just to take people out for lunch disappeared, salaries were frozen. David Martin: I remember there was, like, a tornado threat downtown [in 2010], and we went into the basement to wait it out. And there were all these back issues down there. I picked up an issue from 2004 or 2005, and seeing how much thicker it was than what we were putting out at that time. And I remember thinking, yikes—this is a little bit disturbing. Jason Harper, music editor, 2005–10: We had a staff of a dozen or so full-time journalists covering things in the community that no one else was paying attention to, but that made Kansas City more vibrant and gritty and interesting a place to live. It’s difficult now because a lot of the people who do that now are people with day jobs. Circumstances at The Pitch continued to become more difficult. In 2011, Village
Voice Media sold The Pitch to Southcomm, a media conglomerate that slowly tightened the pursestrings until a scant handful of staffers remained. Over the same period, social media platforms became a major competitor for advertising dollars. Scott Wilson served as editor-in-chief during some of the paper’s most challenging years. Alan Scherstuhl: You could kind of see where it was going. Everyone at The Pitch was asking me how to get into teaching and being an adjunct, and all of my adjunct friends were asking me how to get on at The Pitch. Scott Wilson: My pull quote can be, “We were always willing to die.” Justin Kendall: It was just the most gut-wrenching and frustrating period. You’re trying to keep everything afloat and running, and there’s just a lack of resources and the advertising isn’t there and you’re not able to do the same things. Natalie Gallagher, music editor, 2013–