The Wichita Eagle is an important part of our community. It is hard to watch it fire talented people who know this city and it’s people. Moti likens it to watching a dying friend slowly waste away.

Firing Joe Stumpe was a mistake. Squeezing out  Mark McCormick, and others, is short sighted. What gives The Eagle value is its local connection. You can still read Trudy Rubin and Doonesbury via the Internet. There is no online equivalent to Joe Stumpe.

No one from the Associated Press will know, or care, about a time when Wichita high schools drained their swimming pools after the black students used them. But the AP is still a part of the Wichita Eagle and Mark McCormick is not.

Here’s the most disheartening part– buying more copies of the Eagle won’t save the paper. it will provide more money for McClatchy to delay its own death. The Eagle is profitable and trying to deal with the problems, and opportunities, that the Internet presents. But it doesn’t matter.

A local paper that covers the stuff no one else covers might be able to stay afloat in Wichita. We will never know because this boat is chained to the Titanic.

Tags:   Fed Reb · Joe Stumpe · Mark McCormick · McClatchy · Moti Rieber · The Wichita Eagle