The Star is your source for coronavirus updates, information. Here’s how you can help
For more than three weeks, Kansas City Star journalists have been scrambling across the metro area to chronicle a city in the grips of pandemic shutdown.
They’ve covered a lot of ground.
And they’ve gotten uncomfortably close to COVID-19.
Working day and night for nearly a month, they’ve found stories in hospitals and parks. Interviewed nurses who said they feared for their lives because of inadequate protective equipment. Checked on businesses that residents were complaining shouldn’t be open. Reached out all across the city making contact with people whose families have been touched by the coronavirus. Sat at a truck stop talking to drivers who are key to the supply chain. Covered news conferences and followed daily death reports. Visited the homeless on both sides of the state line. And, poignantly, profiled a couple who lived in their van with an unwelcome guest, the virus.
Our Opinion staff has trained a spotlight on local and state officials who have been slow to respond to this outbreak, calling out those who trade in misinformation, advocating for swift action to protect public health and holding leaders to account for disregarding medical experts’ advice.
Like you, many of our reporters are working from home, staying in touch with sources over the phone and video chats. Two had to be quarantined but are doing well now. Others, while trying to maintain social distancing, still find themselves in harm’s way as they go about their jobs.
We live in times that are redefining and underlining the importance and necessity of community service journalism.
And we need your help.
During the initial wave of rising cases and stay-at-home orders — when local news mattered most — The Star dropped the paywall on all coronavirus stories so you could stay safe and informed.
But the fact is, journalists need to be paid — and subscriptions are critical to our business. So beginning today, we are asking readers to become subscribers and subscribers to keep reading as we return to our paywall model on many of our coronavirus stories.
Over the last month, we’ve seen record readership coming to kansascity.com, eclipsing even the Chiefs’ epic run to the Super Bowl. But our fast-growing monthly trend of adding new subscribers has slowed. And our advertisers - our core customers and partners - like us and many other businesses, are facing uncertainty and financial strain.
At The Star, we are united behind the idea that we do journalism worth paying for. We believe that today more than ever.
But we also know that many in our area are really hurting right now. Whether you can afford to subscribe or not, we will be there for you. Stories that address urgent health and safety issues will remain free for everyone, along with our daily update and our main overview story.
For those who can afford a subscription, please consider supporting our work by paying for the news we are working so hard to give you.
We want to hear from more readers like this one, who shared recently: “I just wanted to thank all of you for all of your hard work during this pandemic. My grandfather lives in an assisted living facility that’s been on lockdown for weeks. We try to talk to him as often as we can, but sometimes we can’t get in touch for a day or two — he has some difficulty using his cell phone. But when we do talk, we always talk about what was in (The Star) that day. It’s really keeping us connected in this weird and difficult time.”
Another said succinctly: “Thanks for keeping the paper up and running!”
Thank you for reading and subscribing. Stay safe and see you soon.
This story was originally published April 7, 2020 at 1:46 PM.
