The Kansas City star's moderate success in journalism comes from it being one of the only major newspapers in the midwest, not necessarily from it's reporters and staff. The sports page had one great writer - Joe Posnaski who left for Sports Illustrated. The rest of the sports writers are frankly, well - not insightful and not very interesting. Editorialist Jason Whitlock is a shock/jock equivalent at best, and likes to play the race card has often as he can to get readers for his stories. (Whether it's defending African Americans or criticizing them). His real talent is covering NCAA basketball and maybe a few Chiefs stories (although he got way to close to some of the players and this clouded his writing, not a good move for an independent journalist).
The Star has enjoyed a monopoly in the midwest area for almost it's entire existence, charging exhtortonist prices for advertising. Don't get me wrong, I like the Star and it's a good paper, but it's also not like I have a choice for local news.