Kansas City Star Denies It Should Have Disclosed Ties To Powerful GOP Law Firm

As you might recall a couple of weeks ago the Kansas City Star, a McCLatchy Newspaper, found itself at ground zero of the Brad Schlozman story, but for two days refused to run Greg Gordon's excellent piece on Schlozman's role in the 2006 election. Critics complained that when the Star finally did run the story, it was edited to soften criticism of the local GOP and several of it's players including Governor Matt Blunt and St. Louis lawyer Mark "Thor" Hearne, national counsel to Bush's 2004 re-election campaign, who set up a nonprofit group to publicize allegations of voter fraud. It turns out that Hearne is a member of the very powerful Missouri Law Firm, Lathrop & Gage. Both the Kansas City Star and Governor Blunt are Lathrop & Gage clients.

Chris Tackett guest blogging at Brad's Blog recently interviewed The Star's Deputy National Editor, Keith Chrostowski hunting for answers. Long story and a lot of mealy mouthing short, Chrostowki says the Star couldn't find space for the story on the day it was released by McClatchy, denies it consulted with Lathrop and Gage about the story, denies the edits changed the story in any material way, and denies the Star had any ethical obligation to report that both the Star and Matt Blunt are clients of Lathrop & Gage, who is the employer of one of the people at the heart of the story, the heart hidden from the public by the Star's edits.

Interesting story within a story. Without Brad's Blog and the Internet, how many folks would ever be aware that the Star had a dog in the fight it was covering.