Kansas City Community Newspapers Fight For East Side Readers

An encouraging bit of print-media news . . .

There is likely still  a place for a community paper in Kansas City. 

A recent struggle pits a longtime professional against upstarts AND his former biz partner. 

Check the basics & more info . . .

Eric Wesson is the former editor and publisher of The Call, the 103-year-old weekly newspaper covering Kansas City’s Black community. After 21 years, he left in June and rented an office in Gates Plaza from which he has launched The Next Page KC, a broadsheet whose coverage bears more than a passing resemblance to his former publication. He brought along a few Call employees and advertisers as well.

His departure has disrupted operations at The Call, a cherished paper with a rich legacy of reporting on civil rights on the East Side. It has also raised questions about just how many local Black publications — there is also The Globe, which is distributed mostly in Black churches, and the new media upstart the KC Defender — the Kansas City market can support circa 2023.

Quick fact check . . .The Defender doesn't have a print outlet and has their biggest following on TikTok. 

Read more via www.TonysKansasCity.com link . . .

On Kansas City's East Side, something rarely seen in modern times: A newspaper war

Eric Wesson has left Black newspaper The Call and started his own print publication, The Next Page KC. They target the same readers.

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